We have a software product that makes extensive use of Perl 5.8.8 – yes, I know, that’s an 11-year-old version. We’ve tried a couple of times to update to more recent versions of Perl, but with all the Perl modules that our code depends on plus our own custom modules it rapidly turned into a compatibility nightmare, and both times we gave up. Now we’d like to port our product to z/OS, so we’re looking for a Perl ~5.8.x version for z/OS. I believe IBM used to provide 5.8.7 (which should also work for us) as part of their Ported Tools program http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/features/unix/ported/perl/ , but they withdrew support for it in 2013, and I don’t know where to find a copy (nor what the legal status of using such a copy for commercial purposes would now be). Does Rocket provide a Perl version of around that vintage (I don’t see one on the website), or does anyone here know where if might find or how to obtain such a thing (possibly a copy of the Ported Tools one that IBM used to provide, or some other one)? If so, is it going to work with a current release of z/OS?
The closest thing I’ve located so far is Perl 5.6.1 from IBM’s Redbooks http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/features/unix/library/IBM+Redbooks/index.html#perl (which I strongly suspect is going to be too old for us). The documentation for that seems to suggest that (at least back then) I could just download Perl 5.6.1 source from CPAN and compile it successfully on z/OS. If so, does anyone have any idea whether this might also work for 5.8.8 (which isn’t that much newer), and if so are there any tools that I first need to install to do so, or any tips I need to know to make it work?