[tex-live] opinion requested about Perl

[Karl Berry]

    - compile the scripts with ActiveState Perl compiler into .exe files,

How much space do the compiled scripts end up consuming?  When I've
attempted perl compilation, the resulting binaries are huge.  (If it's a
lot, we might just as well include perl in the first place.)

    Any idea on what is the most convenient solution ?

All in all, if we could assume perl, that might prove useful in the
future, since we could write other cross-platform scripts instead of
having to have Windows binaries vs. Unix shell scripts (mktex...).

I think the only place where the extra 40mb (plus sources?) would be a
problem is the demo cd (or whatever we call it :).  Are the perl scripts
needed for that?  If they are, however, I can't guess at what we could
remove to make space ...