For the Perl Toolchain Summit Agenda

By posting here I am hoping to attract the attention of people who will=20
be attending the Perl Toolchain Summit=20
(https://perltoolchainsummit.org/pts2024/) to be held in Lisbon from=20
April 25 to 28.  (I originally posted this message to perl5-porters on=20
March 28.)  We are experiencing problems with infrastructure that plays=20
a vital role in our ongoing work on the Perl core distribution --=20
problems which may benefit from the attention of PTS attendees.

I. CPANtesters not reporting names of distributions tested

I originally reported this problem on the cpan-testers-discuss mailing=20
list/newsgroup on January 9 2024=20
(https://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.cpan.testers.discuss/2024/01/msg459=
9.html).=20
  New versions of certain distributions have been uploaded to CPAN and=20
have been tested by various CPANtesters rigs -- but the names of those=20
distributions are not being logged and, as an apparent consequence, no=20
reports for those versions are being presented in the web interfaces.

Case in point:  In my original posting I reported that Net-SSLeay-1.94=20
was uploaded on January 8 (which was off by one day; the upload was on=20
January 7) but no page displaying results for that version had yet to=20
appear either at the matrix=20
(http://matrix.cpantesters.org/?dist=3DNet-SSLeay) or the fast-matrix=20
(http://fast-matrix.cpantesters.org/?dist=3DNet-SSLeay).  On both pages t=
he
*displayed* version is 1.93_05, but you can also see:

#####
Other versions
NOTE: no report for latest version 1.94
#####

So the system is aware that 1.94 has been released to CPAN but believes=20
that no reports have yet been uploaded.  That means that we at Perl 5=20
Porters have no way of knowing whether changes we have been making in=20
the core distribution may have broken Net-SSLeay -- a distribution for=20
which there has even been discussion of shipping it with core.

This problem persists.  Another CPAN distribution whose latest version=20
is not being reported is MIME-tools-5.514, uploaded to CPAN on February=20
6.  The most recent version reported on at the matrix or the fast-matrix=20
(http://fast-matrix.cpantesters.org/?dist=3DMIME-tools) is 5.513, the las=
t=20
report for which was received on February 6.

Slaven Rezi=C4=87 reported this problem as an issue in the=20
cpantesters-backend bug queue on February 21=20
(https://github.com/cpan-testers/cpantesters-backend/issues/27).  He=20
suggested a possible diagnosis and correction.  While there has been=20
some discussion in that ticket, it does not appear to have attracted the=20
attention of people who to my knowledge were involved with the=20
CPANtesters infrastructure in the past.

Implication:  Blead may be "breaking" CPAN, but, less than a month going=20
into our next production release, we are not finding out about it.

II.  Delayed mail forwarding through cpan.org

On February 10 I reported to P5P=20
(https://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2024/02/msg267842.htm=
l)=20
that I was experiencing delays in receiving email notifications about=20
postings being made to our GitHub issues and pull request queues.  At=20
the time I speculated that the problem might have been on GH's side.=20
This was incorrect.  Additional data and discussion with the perl.org=20
system administrators led the admins to post=20
(https://log.perl.org/2024/02/cpanorg-email-deliverability-issues.html)=20
this was affecting all cpan.org email addresses, was a result of some=20
backend changes and that "addressing this issue will require significant=20
technical adjustments."

My hunch is that these problems are as much human (insufficient=20
volunteer resources; recruiting the next generation of people to=20
maintain Perl's infrastructure) as they are technical.  I hope they can=20
be placed on the agenda for the PTS.

Thank you very much.
Jim Keenan