I initially started writing a rather rambling reply based on my private experiences, but I reconsidered. I just ran across this Alan Cox quote over on use.perl.org, which I think is pretty relevant: "Free software projects without good input filtering of ideas turn into bloated sludge". I believe that's language independent, and mostly a social/managerial issue.

Let me just say that I agree with your remarks, even though I believe that many open source projects prove that it's not necessarily Java that makes managing international development teams successful.

I do concede the point that Perl (or rather, CPAN) does not offer as mature a framework for enterprise apps as Java. I suspect that's an indicator of the general interest of the respective developer communities. I do still wonder whether that means there's really a controversy going on between Java and Perl. Maybe I'm just too far removed from the intersection point between your 95% and the remaining 5%, but apparently nobody on either side debates that 5% area, while the 95% part is (from the bottom up?) overwhelmingly filled by Perl. I generally get the impression that most of those Java vs Perl debates are not much more than turbulence in the 90% region, so to speak. Do you think technology decisions in that area are made mainly on the differences between Perl and Java? I wonder.

I hope the above hasn't turned out to be a ramble after all...