An open bug for this problem was reported. If you want to use this module either use the previous version (the most recent introduced this feature according to the change log) or fix the problem and submit a patch.

Update: I'll upload a patch when I get home.

I'd love to fix the bug and submit the patch. Unfortunately, I'm at about a 'grasshopper' level of coding for the most part. :-)

Thanks for the pointer to the bug tho. It's good to know I'm not going insane.

The test suite failed when I tried to install the module (Strawberry Perl 5.16, Windows 7 pro 64bit), I changed line 96 of Module::Starter::Simple.pm from:

if ( not $self->{author} ) {
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To

if ( ( not $self->{author} ) && ( $^O ne 'MSWin32' ) ) {
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So it'll fall through to:

croak "Must specify an author\n" unless $self->{author};
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rather than fall in a heap because getpwuid isn't implemented in this platform. So yes, you'll have to provide a value fo author, but at least this way the test suite will pass, the module will install without a force and you'll be told what to do to make it work. As I say, I'll look into the problem in more detail and submit an appropriate patch when I get home.

Update: added to explanation for clarity.

Update: Patch submitted.

If you specify the author manually, you don't need getpwuid.

use strict;
use warnings;
use Module::Starter;

my %args = ( 
    modules => [ 'Hdb' ],
    author  => 'hdb',
    email   => 'hdb@some.de',
    );
Module::Starter->create_distro(%args);
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if you specify --author argument you won't encounter getpwuid

author and email are mandatory

module-starter --module Shabba --email email --author author --verbose --mi