From:	Rafael Garcia-Suarez	Date:	Mon Jan 10 06:22:41 2005
Subject:	Re: mini-maxi dists

Gabor Szabo wrote in perl.dist :
>
> OK, can someone please explain what is the story with the dual-life 
> modules ? As I understand these have both CPAN and perl-x.x.x versions.

More precisely those are modules that are bundled with perl, although
they also exist on CPAN. That doesn't mean that they have other version
numbers. (The module Module::CoreList lists which versions of modules
are available in which versions of perl.)

> What is the difference ? What is the process that happens today when
> the autor updates his CPAN version ? What if the porters change something
> in the module ?

When an update is done on CPAN, some guy with commit access updates the
core perl version. When a change is made to the core perl version, it's
forwarded to the author for inclusion on CPAN. This relies, of course,
on the authors/maintainers to be responsive.

As a convention, and for various reasons, when the core perl version is
updated, it is given an alpha version number (i.e. one with an
underscore in it.)

> Which modules are dual-life ?

See Porting/Maintainers.pl in the perl source distribution.

> In this maxiPerl thing I started I take a standard perl,
> unzip it, create a subdir called CPAN (clever name, eg ? :)
> and copy the unzipped versions of the tarballs of the modules.
> moving to at authors/?/??/* structure might make sense. I put it on
> the think about list.

Hmm, I think you'd rather unbundle them under ext/ or lib/. (At least
all XS modules must go in ext/). So you don't have to patch perl's
makefile/Configure to make it build all supplementary modules.

-- 
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--All Ireland is washed by the gulfstream, Stephen said.
    -- Ulysses