Yeah, I just read a README.SSL in the libwww-perl distribution that mentioned that.
Okay, I couldn't avoid it so here's the entire situation: I wrote some custom software to be used by a 3rd party on the west coast. This software basically talks to another e-vendor over https - so I went out to Verisign and bought a x.509 certificate and installed it (to test with). Of course the cert would need to be taken off before I sent the finished computer to the west coast so they could install they're own. Oh, the system I configured for them was Windows2000 server so installing the cert was not difficult. It installed fine with no issues.

Here's the kicker: I got the system working fine....tested it with the e-vendor...looked good - used the same previous code snippet to POST my stuff. No problems.
Removed my cert - send the box to the west coast. They placed the box in a DMZ (but opened holes for Port 80 and 443). The software can connect to this e-vendor via http, but get's 501 invalid protocol 'https' when trying to connect to https. Now why did the same box work for me, but not when they put they're own cert on there??? A million dollar question.

I'm trouble shooting locally on a linux box so I can understand the 'protocol not implemented' here since I have not messed with OPENSSL or any crypt packages yet, but surely it should work on the Windows box - it did before.

Thanks again for any help.