Re^4: Getting Fed Up with ActiveState

[xdg]

I also think that fostering the expectation that large volumes of win32 Perl (corporates and individual) users (as opposed to hackers) will abandon AS for a DIY build it yourself on every machine alternative is forlorn and pointless.

Vanilla/Strawberry Perl are not "build it yourself". They are just packaged installers. Yes, it's volunteer labor. How does that differ from a Perl RPM or other package from any major Linux distribution? Or any packaged installer for Windows from other OSS projects?

motivated by the wish to make things easier for the Perl module developers--which by and large means non-win32 users--rather than the vast majority of win32 Perl users.

I think you have this backwards. It's motivated by Perl module developers who want to make things easier for the vast majority of Win32 Perl users by freeing them from the shackles of Perl 5.8.1 core modules mandated by the AS build process. The goal is to help users benefit from new or upgraded modules. Most users won't be bothered to try to figure it out a module that isn't available as a PPM could be installed anyway via CPAN -- if a PPM isn't available, they just won't use it.

If anything, it's making module authors' lives more difficult because of the greater number of modules getting scrutiny and bug reports on the Win32 platform. (c.f. Vanilla Perl Problem Modules) Tools like CPAN::Reporter are part of this -- increasing visibility of Win32 portability problems through CPAN Testers rather than leaving it relatively hidden inside a proprietary build system.