At least initially there was no cooperation between Red Hat and MandrakeSoft at all. A founder of MandrakeSoft says in an Inside Magazine article that:

"It was 1998, and KDE had just come out. He Gael Duval wanted to take Red Hat the Linux distribution, remove the crappy interface, install KDE in its place and make the user links a bit easier."

Red Hat for its part appears not to object after the fact to what Mandrake has done. Indeed, they should not object. I started using Mandrake 7.2 because it was the only Linux that would recognize my video card. I got so hooked on Linux/Perl that I installed Red Hat 5.1 on a second, smaller laptop that did not have enough memory for Mandrake 7.2.

So now —thanks to Mandrake having copied Red Hat— I am using Red Hat more than I would have otherwise. If BlueLines goes ahead and releases an upgrade to the original Perl module he upgraded then his release will stimulate interest in the original module. Maybe it will even motivate the original developer to start working on it again.

There is no need to delay releasing the upgrade for months while engaging in a search for the original author.