Yes, it looks confusing. That's probably the legacy of a quarter century of development.
Update:
perlsource may have some clues:
Core modules
Modules shipped as part of the Perl core live in four subdirectories. Two of these directories contain modules that live in the core, and two contain modules that can also be released separately on CPAN. Modules which can be released on cpan are known as "dual-life" modules.
- lib/
- This directory contains pure-Perl modules which are only released as part of the core. This directory contains all of the modules and their tests, unlike other core modules.
- ext/
- Like lib/, this directory contains modules which are only released as part of the core. Unlike lib/, however, a module under ext/ generally has a CPAN-style directory- and file-layout and its own Makefile.PL. There is no expectation that a module under ext/ will work with earlier versions of Perl 5. Hence, such a module may take full advantage of syntactical and other improvements in Perl 5 blead.
- dist/
- This directory is for dual-life modules where the blead source is canonical. Note that some modules in this directory may not yet have been released separately on CPAN. Modules under dist/ should make an effort to work with earlier versions of Perl 5.
- cpan/
- This directory contains dual-life modules where the CPAN module is canonical. Do not patch these modules directly! Changes to these modules should be submitted to the maintainer of the CPAN module. Once those changes are applied and released, the new version of the module will be incorporated into the core.
For some dual-life modules, it has not yet been determined if the CPAN version or the blead source is canonical. Until that is done, those modules should be in cpan/.
Alexander
--
Today I will gladly share my knowledge and experience, for there are no sweeter words than "I told you so". ;-)
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