I just wanted to drop in and make a few comments on the discussion. I hang out on the M::B list and occasionally try to help either when users post about problems or by suggesting patches, etc. (I'm the one responsible if there are any outstanding Win32 problems as most of that code is my "fault".)

I'm not sure I understand the negative perceptions wrt Ken and the development of M::B. The M::B list is open to everyone; I usually make it point to mention it anytime I get a chance. All thoughts/ideas/suggestions are welcome. There have been a few times where it might have seemed that discussions where cut short, but this (afair) was primarily because the discussion was a repeat of previous discussions.

On the issue of MakeMaker compatibility, I believe it was decided a long time ago that after years of tacked on features, MakeMaker had become a kludge. Micheal (the current maintainer) whole heartedly agrees and has actively encourage M::B to separate from MakeMaker where it makes sense and provides for a better design/implementation. I agree with their design goals in this regard; it makes sense. In fact, I probably have more radical views on this as I believe that if you can't maintain complete compatability then you should be as different as possible. There is no way that M::B can be better without being different.

As for the PPM thing. As Dave said, M::B providing the ability to generate a ppm has nothing to do with them being uploaded to CPAN. They definately don't belong there imho. I wish there wasn't a need for PPM, but unfortunately there seems to be. It would be nice to see it go away now that Microsoft has release free commandline version of their compiler, but I don't see ActiveState stopping it as it is seen as an easer install system by most of their users.

As for the name of the ppm, it was arbitrarily chosen to give it a name unique from a regular CPAN distribution. Now that it has been sugested I much prefer a name like module-name-version.ppm.tar.gz. Hopefully that change will make it into the next version.

As for any other criticism of M::B please post them to the M::B list. M::B needs more feedback from the communtity if it is to improve. At last count there were over 200 unique distributions on CPAN, so it is growing. It's up to the community to decide the direction. You will not be flamed for posting criticisms on the list.

Regards,
Randy W. Sims