I disagree completely. CPAN modules are free software, however they're published. People who publish software to a public archive are under a moral obligation to either maintain their code or to remove their code from publication (or, in the case of CPAN, add a prominent note to their documentation that the module is no longer maintained by the author and may be up for adoption)

I'm under no moral obligation to maintain my code. I do (as time permits) but I'm certainly not under obligation to. The openness of CPAN is in my opinion the core reason for its success. I'm in total agreement with Jarkko's The Zen of Comprehensive Archive Networks when he said:

Code quality? Ratings/reviews? Moderation/metamoderation? "Approved" SDKs? These all are hotly debated subjects and will not be addressed here since the CPAN is and will stay an open and free forum, where the authors decide what they upload. Any further selection belongs to different fora. Besides, adding any rating or approval processes creates bottlenecks, and bottlenecks are bad.

Now, given that, there are too many orphaned modules on CPAN. Personally I don't use a module that hasn't been touched in years. Of course that could mean it's perfectly stable, however I don't feel that is often the case.

Also, I never require a module in another module that either has dependants that are orphaned or that don't pass their tests easily. If I have problems installing something, then I can only assume my users will have the same problems.

This is of course your privilege and CPAN allows you to do this. I'm happy using some older modules because they do the job and CPAN allows me to do this too. I don't want to see them go just because they don't fit your usage pattern of CPAN.

In reply to Re^3: How Many Modules Is Too Many? by adrianh
in thread How Many Modules Is Too Many? by Belgarion

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