0c81a5c merged the removal of' as a package separator.

After more discussion, the PSC believes it would be better to make the removal guarded by a feature.
(Similar to what was done with theindirect,multidimensional andbareword_filehandles features.)

That feature would be included in the:default feature bundle and all bundles up to:5.40. It wouldn't be included in:5.42. The main benefit would be that none of the unmaintained modules on CPAN and elsewhere would break, while newer code would not be able to the apostrophe any more.

It has been suggested that the only really surprising/problematic aspect of' as a package separator is in string interpolation (e.g."This is $owner's house" would reference the package variable$owner::s). We think that if the feature is disabled, it might has well be disabled entirely, including for subroutines (e.g.isn't as provided byTest::More —Note: this specific subroutine has been deprecated in recent versions ofTest::More).

The proposed name for the feature (which is unlikely to ever be enabled manually, so there's no need to consider ease of typing):apostrophe_as_package_separator.

See also:Putting apostrophe as a package separator behind a feature.