As I understand it, the Perl used by the system and the Perl used by other code need not be the same and it can be a very bad idea to change the system Perl. Now, I'm a Losedows user, so take this with more than a pinch of salt until it's confirmed by someone who knows more.

It's certainly possible, on any operating system that has the disc space, to have more than one version of Perl. My approach, therefore, would be along the lines of identifying a real operational need for a single application that needs a later version. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If you have the operational need, then try to persuade them to allow the parallel installation of a later version to be used for that application only. Once you have demonstrated that the two can coexist and that the additional functionality is useful, you can start playing a recording of "wouldn't it be nice to standardise on a single version".

But I repeat for emphasis two points: don't change the system Perl and don't fix something that's working.

Regards,

John Davies

Update based on chromatic's reply: you can point out that, as 5.8 is deprecated, you will have to upgrade if you upgrade the OS to a later version, so it would be helpful to start finding out what problems exist in good time.