Perl hackers have now, as of today the 16th August 2015, been uploading Perl modules onto CPAN via PAUSE for 20 years. Andreas König, who did that first upload, is still releasing to CPAN, and as I write this his most recent upload is the same module that was first released to CPAN.

This post is a brief summary of CPAN's history.

If you've got one or more distributions on CPAN, then on CPAN Day you could go through them and see if there are any ideas you've had which aren't listed in the issue tracker (typically RT or github issues).

If you don't have any distributions on CPAN, then you could go through the modules that you regularly use and see if there are any issues you could raise.

I'll expand a bit on what I mean, and why it might be a good use of your time.

We've probably all got one or more modules that we're very thankful for. Maybe you use it again and again. Maybe the fact that it exists saved you from having to write it yourself. Maybe it's such a well-crafted module that you don't need to think about it, but always have it on your tool belt.

Maybe for/on CPAN Day, you could do or organise something related to that module, as a way to say thank you, perhaps to improve it for all of us?

Here are some ideas.

CPAN Day marks the date of the first upload to CPAN, on 16th August 1995. Last year was the first time we celebrated CPAN Day, and many of us did a lot of different things. Why not do something helpful for CPAN on Sunday 16th August?