My proposal to add a 'lib_requires' keyword to the META file - with identical semantics as Devel::CheckLib did not make at this round of META spec changes. Now I think that maybe a better strategy would be to start with adding this to the documentation. I am sure many packages already do that - but I have encountered others that don't. What I have in mind is a standard POD section that would be generated by all the module scaffolding generators (like Module::Starter) and which would contain all the information needed to install the external lib in common environments. After this becomes a common thing we would be able to make more informed decisions about including it into the META file.
http://perlalchemy.blogspot.com/2009/12/external-dependencies-once-again.html -- Zbigniew Lukasiak http://brudnopis.blogspot.com/ http://perlalchemy.blogspot.com/