If you wish to package MakeMaker in a binary package, here's some tips. tl;dr version: 1a) Set the BUILDING_AS_PACKAGE environment variable to a true value. OR 1b) Set the $BUILDING_AS_PACKAGE variable in the Makefile.PL to true. 2) Package normally, but watch out for dependency loops. MakeMaker cannot have any dependencies, everything depends on it and that would be a dependency loop. It instead bundles pre-built copies of all its non-core dependencies in the bundled/ directory. It adds them to itself if they're not already installed. This can confuse packagers, it makes it look like MakeMaker contains a lot more modules than it really does and causes conflicts. You can tell MakeMaker not to use its bundles and instead declare the dependencies normally. This is done either by setting the BUILDING_AS_PACKAGE environment variable to true or by patching the Makefile.PL and setting $BUILDING_AS_PACKAGE to true. On the down side, there will be dependency loops which your packaging system will have to resolve.