Perl 5.8 is nearly 20 years old now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl_5_version_history checkpatch uses regexes that are incompatible with perl versions earlier than 5.10, but these uses are currently runtime checked and skipped if the perl version is too old. This runtime checking skips several useful tests. There is also some desire for tools like kernel-doc, checkpatch and get_maintainer to use a common library of regexes and functions: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/YR2lexDd9N0sWxIW@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/ It'd be useful to set the minimum perl version to something more modern. I believe perl 5.14, now only a decade old, is a reasonable target. Any objections or suggestions for a newer minimum version?
