My primary vocation is that of Network / Systems Administrator and as such I have to deploy and maintain the applications from developers outside our company. When I read that you modify CPAN modules for deployment to your customers... I couldn't believe it!

The absolutely worst thing I can think of is a developer requiring a hacked development environment on my systems. I don't have any problem with a developer requiring particular versions of modules or interpreters / compilers on the system, but when they modify other authors work that will break other developers code that may use that same module that is in my opinion extremely bad form and as such I would put in a recommendation not to use that developer again.

I know this seems harsh, but when supporting an application environment we don't want to have unidentifiable incompatibility with another program using that same module - and of course if we reinstall that module - then the first program mysteriously stops working.

Standards MUST be complied with, if you need to change the operation of another authors module, change it in YOUR code, or if appropriate contact that author and work with him, and if it is an orphaned project, see about taking over the code and deploy your revision of the code to CPAN, properly documented of course.