While you're at it, your lint process may want to catch that there should only be one package statement per file, and that package statement should match the filename, including path, from some entry in @INC, with directory separators becoming ::, and a .pm thrown on at the end. All of this is further convention that is usually a Good Practice (tm).

Or, you could embrace the freedom that perl gives to do what you think is right instead of what Larry thinks is right. Which means not following convention when convention is getting in the way of getting your job done. I've had cause to buck convention in the past, and your lint would probably give me problems over it. The key is to allow people to do what needs to be done, as long as they acknowledge they're doing something strange. Just like we always "use strict", but have the ability to lexically scope "no strict" (preferably with a modifier, such as 'refs').