This may be true, but Perl isn't about their only being one true path. In the spirit of TIMTOWTDI having more then one option on how to distribute is fine.

I'd like to make programs I've written available on my company's intraweb to run on their desktops. No way to install on all of them. In the past I've wondered about writing a game server and client in Perl, but realized that I did not have an executable to distribute.

Heck, I administer a horde of AIX (IBM's Unix) boxen that come with Perl as part of the standard distribution, but a C compiler license is extra so I have to fill out investment paperwork if I want to include certain modules that require compilation.

I love Perl because of it's flexibility. I just wish that the same flexibility also existed on the choice of how to execute.

...you might be eaten by a grue...