last updated 2025-01-16
It has been the plan that this version number will be used for Perl at some point in the future.
As of 2025, there is now a proposal to use the second component of the Perl version number as the major version, skipping over the question of what Perl 7 should or should not be.
Unclear. We (the Perl community) have to figure out what it will be first, or if it is even a useful next step for Perl.
"The plan remains that there will be a Perl 7 bump, but not immediately after 5.34.0 is released. We want to make it “good value” - to have clearly communicable improvements. We don’t think that we can deliver on that in 12 months." - Perl Steering Council, 2021-05-06
"At some point in the future, the PSC may decide that the set of features, taken together, represent a big enough step forward to justify a new baseline for Perl. If that happens, then the version will be bumped to 7.0." - Perl Steering Council, 2022-05-26
"The way forward for Perl providing a better baseline is via the use v mechanism." - Perl Steering Council, 2021-04-11
"We want to move the language forwards more quickly than we have been, but we'll be sticking with the yearly release schedule, and every year's release should be a safe candidate for /usr/bin/perl." - Neil Bowers, 2021-05-16
This means that the current plan is not to change the defaults, but for a baseline of strict and warnings to be applied by a declaration like use 7. The use VERSION statement applies both strict and warnings starting with use v5.36, so this will also be true of use 7 or use 42 or any higher version.
Certainly not; this was not even proposed and is not feasible. But as of Perl v5.36, it is no longer experimental and is being added to feature bundles, so will also be enabled by a sufficiently high use VERSION statement.
The Cor project is being added to Perl as the class feature, which can be opted into as it is developed and may be added to feature bundles in whatever version of Perl it is deemed stable.
There are no concrete plans for any specific changes to default features. Perl has an existing standard process for adding and removing features and there are no plans to change this process.
The 7.0 feature bundle or that of a higher version will be enabled by use VERSION, and the specifics of each feature bundle will be decided according to what is ready for widespread use.
Perl is developed by a relatively small group of volunteers and grantees, and many of those vital contributors either did not agree with the initial proposal as announced by then-pumpking Sawyer X, or did not find it realistic.[1][2][3][4][5][6] As such, the question of Perl governance authority was raised back in August 2020 stalling any further discussion on Perl 7, and this has been a long process shepherded by former pumpking Ricardo Signes, which has now reached a conclusion in late December 2020.
A core team of those active in Perl development elects a three-member steering council that serves a term of one stable Perl release or two years, whichever comes first. This council governs according to the new perlgov constitution document roughly based on Python's PEP 13. The current membership of this council can also be found in perlgov.
Dan Book (Grinnz, CPAN DBOOK), an invested Perl community member who has written his own opinions on the matter: