I was going through the Win:: modules and wanted to try a few, but
got stuck when a basic one failed to work:
Win32::API (http://cpan.uwinnipeg.ca/dist/Win32-API).

It was last released over 3 years ago.

The last time the author touched any of his modules was about
three years ago.

There Non of the bugs listed in rt.cpan.org are answered
or addressed.  There have been outstanding bugs on this module
for almost 2 years (1st open filed June 25,2004).

I tried the email address listed for the author, but it bounces.

So how are modules pass on once their owners seem to have passed
on CPAN?

The author (Aldo Calpini) CPAN id=ACALPINI, also owns
Lingua-IT-Conjugate
Lingua-IT-Hyphenate
Lingua-Stem-It
Tie-AliasHash
Win32-API
Win32-Sound
Win32Shortcut
-----------
    All modules appear to be "stale".  The latest released one,
"Tie-AliasHash" was last touched June 26, 2003.

  So what is the procedure for dealing with abandoned modules?  Are
they put up for adoption or what?

-linda

Google the archives of this list for postings by brian d foy.  You'll
get a feeling for how the PAUSE administrators deal with this problem.
If you are willing and able to assume maintenance of some of that
author's modules, please follow brian's suggestions about posting on
modu...@perl.org (which is different from this list), use.perl.org, etc.

I will be speaking at YAPC::NA::2006 in Chicago on the experiences of
myself and others who have taken over maintenance of CPAN distributions
from their authors or previous maintainers.  I hope that that
presentation will focus attention on this issue.

Jim Keenan

Try a posting on perlmonks. He used to frequent that site ona regular basis.

Yves

unfortunately, this is not the case anymore :-)
but fortunately, BooK just warned me about this thread, so I quickly
joined the mailing list. let me say that I feel very, very sorry about
the current status of my contribution to CPAN.

you probably know how it goes, you always think "maybe next month I'll
find the time", but then months stack up and you never found it :-(

I'm currently very busy with my work and my Real Life routine, so I
can't promise anything about new releases or bugs fixed or anything. add
to that the fact that my email has become a major spam-catcher, so I'm
forced to ignore nearly everything that comes in.

if someone feels motivated to take over maintenance of one or more of my
modules, feel free to contact me and we'll arrange things (I already
done so for Win32::GUI ). I still hope, however, to be able to become an
active contributor again in a distant future. but I don't hold my breath.

cheers,
Aldo