So, does anyone maintain a darkpan
Yes, but not in the way you're looking at it. There's just too much overhead in mimicing CPAN, and it's just too focussed on Perl.
Typically, I either use a version control system (git, CVS, home-brew) to replicate to various systems, or I've used a general package system (RPM + yum, puppet, cfengine, Solaris packages, and HP and AIX solutions whose details I've lost over time). Neither of them can be said to be "better"; different environments ask for different solutions. I just cannot imagine a situation where a CPAN lookalike would be the best solution.
