Never upgrade the Perl version

[dolmen]

How are you running Renovate?

Mend Renovate hosted app on github.com

If you're self-hosting Renovate, tell us what version of Renovate you run.

No response

If you're self-hosting Renovate, select which platform you are using.

None

Was this something which used to work for you, and then stopped?

I am trying to get this working for the first time

Describe the problem

TL;DR: Upgrading the Perl version must just be left to the project maintainers.

The @renovate-bot sends PRs to upgrade the Perl version in cpanfile configuration to the latest Perl version just released a few days ago.
Example: cucumber/gherkin#140

This is completely WRONG because:

• The Perl version is the requirement MINIMUM version of the Perl runtime. Requiring the latest version of the runtime which is not yet available in Linux distribution repositories just means that nobody will be able to use the project anymore, including CI environments (ex: GitHub actions ubuntu-latest). So a perl module that only requires v5.8.8 (released 17 years ago) is just fine (the Perl community has a strong sense of backward compatibility).
• Upgrading v5.38.0 -> v5.39.0 is a MAJOR upgrade in the perl world. For example this is where deprecations happen, or when features disappear. The v5 is not significant as v5 will stay forever (v4 -> v5 happened 30 years ago; v6 is now called Raku, v7 will not happen).

Note: In general, do not rely on SEMVER semantics for Perl modules: Perl module distribution has existed long before SEMVER has been specified, and most modules do not follow SEMVER semantics.

Relevant debug logs

No response

Have you created a minimal reproduction repository?

I have linked to a minimal reproduction in the description above

[rarkins]

It's not wrong, it's not a problem, and ignoring/disabling dependencies is clearly documented

[rarkins]

This user has been blocked for inflammatory comments - we have a low tolerance for such negativity. Unblocking is done as generously as blocking though - a simple email is enough.

[rarkins]

I’m happy to discuss a change in semantics for Perl updating with anyone as long as it’s done with some politeness. It sounds similar to the go module directive behavior we implemented.

Please start a new discussion if so.