On Tue, Jul 16, 2024 at 4:31 AM Russ Allbery <ea...@eyrie.org> wrote:
> Hi folks, > > I've started a few conversations in the past year about pushing forward > the minimum Perl version of podlators, which is a "way upstream" package > with lots of transitive dependencies. In the v6.0.0 release, I pushed the > minimum Perl version forward to 5.12. > > This broke a release process for brian d foy, resulting in the following > issue: > > https://github.com/rra/podlators/issues/35 > > Some of this is my fault in ways that I can fix: I should have used an > alpha version (weirdly enough, I have somehow managed to be a core > maintainer for 25 years without using alpha versions, which is entirely on > me and I need to start), and I should have gotten announcements into a few > more places. > > Some of this may be my fault in ways that I'm not willing to fix, but I'm > not sure. > > Some of it makes me wonder if I misunderstood the previous discussions and > the implications of the Lyon Amendment for the usability of CPAN tools and > for what prerequisites have to be met before bumping the minimum Perl > version of way upstream packages to versions of Perl up to 5.16. I feel > like I'm hearing different things from different people, all of whom are > far more plugged in to the community than I am. > > If folks would be willing to take a look at that issue, particularly folks > who were involved in some of these previous discussions, and let me know > if I have completely misunderstood or am barking up entirely the wrong > tree, I would greatly appreciate it. > > Thank you! > It's a maximum minimum version. It allows one to require a newer version, it doesn't require you to do so. There's always a cost/benefit ratio to take into account, and IMO for old modules it rarely makes sense to bump the required version. The benefits are often dubious, and there's a real cost for downstream users. For newer modules it often makes more sense. Leon
