I am not exactly sure this is the appropriate place to raise this idea but it relates very strongly to quality of CPAN modules.
Occasionally new version of CPAN modules break code in applications. We cannot catch that, but we can at least catch cases when it breaks other CPAN modules. There are many people who would like to use only stable versions of CPAN modules to some definition of stable. For lack of better definition I might define stable as 'not breaking other important CPAN module'. I would like to be able to setup a system where I can mark a set of module/version pairs with a flag and version number. (e.g. I would use szabgab_1, szabgab_2...) Then when someone installs a module she would be able to configure CPAN.pm to only install modules with a specific version number of that specific flag (e.g only szabgab_1). Modules without such flag could be installed only by force. A module that has such a flag will be installed at the given version of the module. E.g. I just spent some time figuring out that my applications broke because DBD::SQLite 1.13 broke Class::DBI. If we had that system in place my flag (szabgab_1) would still point to DBD::SQLite 1.12. Then anyone using my flag would be (reasonably) safe upgrading DBD::SQLite as I am going to advance the flag on DBD::SQLite only once I tested it works with Class::DBI. Others might also create such flags for modules they need. We might also be able to cooperate and manage a common flag that covers most of CPAN. The mapping of flag to Module-Version pairs could actually reside on any server with ftp or http access. CPAN.pm would be configured to use such a URL. What do you think? Gabor
