I've been thunking about this on and off ever since I read the news item and referenced blog entry. And I have vacillated back and forth between the three positions:

1. An incremental (evolutionary) development path of a reliable stalwart.
2. A revolutionary leap that builds upon, but is not constrained by, that stalwart.
3. A future that favours useful and user-friendly enhancements to, (and where necessary), departures from, over backward compatibility.

I'm done thunking; I favour option 3.

And I suggest that "Perl5 v2" is a better nomenclature than the alternatives. And that what is currently designated as "perl 5.10.1", be re-designated as "Perl5 v2". And that the enhancements that currently require enabling be the default; and that they should require explicit disabling to retain 5.8.x backward compatibility.

And that the facility to so disable, be deprecated immediately, with withdrawal muted for "Perl5 v2.1" (currently designated "Perl 5.12.0"). All releases between now and (as currently designated "Perl 5.12.0") Perl5 v2.1, would be nomeclatured as "perl5 v2.0.x".