Hi cbrandtbuffalo --

Break your requirements into two:

1. System which happen to use Perl, such as UNIX servers which perform some other task.
2. Servers which host production Perl applications.

The first situation is very easy to deal with: Upgrade Perl when you upgrade your OS. Consider the out-of-the-box RedHat Enterprise server. It comes with Perl, and has its own mechanism for keeping Perl up to date. If you don't have custom Perl apps on that server, let RedHat's up2date handle it for you. When you upgrade from ES3 to ES4 you will get whatever version of Perl comes with the latter.

The second case can be handled as follows:

1. Recognize that this is a development issue and not an operations issue. IOW, it's controled by your developers' need.
2. Dev should set the Perl version on a per project basis.
3. Build your apps with all their libraries local. An *excellent* example of this is the Krang CMS project.

If you adopt the methodology used by Krang, you will find that you are immune to upgrade problems, and have a very solid platform for testing new versions of Perl on your apps before you put them into production.

TTYL,

-Jesse-