Damian … said it's "already too late."

I agree. I have no clear idea how a rename will help anyone at this point unless the porters decide to release the next update as Perl 7 the same time the rename happens. But still, without some significant marketing dollars spread around—and maybe an extremely good app or two—it will harm more than help. There will be no differentiator in the release, unless signatures and some OO become bombproof, non-experimental core. The widespread, entrenched hatred for Perl 5 will commute directly to Perl 7 with newly strengthened critiques: look at this mess, it hasn’t changed, it’s just a trick, the upgrade cycle will kill everyone’s apps, as if Perl had any apps, compatibility is impossible with a double version jump, talk about your backpedalling! et cetera, et cetera.

And FTR I still disagree, strongly, that Perl 6 hurt Perl 5 particularly or in the grand scheme. Perl 5 was circling the drain *beforehand*. That was the entire genesis. Perl 6 caused some confusion but less division of effort than claimed and it brought back-ported improvements and renewed interest. Without that, I don’t know that Perl 5 wouldn’t be in worse shape today.