Severity is low as long as no package depends on pod2html, otherwise it's critical because many components depend on GNU ReadLine.

The problem is that running any program involving ReadLine on Perl results in segmentation fault.

For instance:

/usr/bin/core_perl/pod2html
stops with a segmentation fault.

If I debug it:

perl -d /usr/bin/core_perl/pod2html

Loading DB routines from perl5db.pl version 1.39_10
Editor support available.

Enter h or 'h h' for help, or 'man perldebug' for more help.

main::(/usr/bin/core_perl/pod2html:2):
2: eval 'exec /usr/bin/perl -S $0 ${1+"$@"}'
3: if $running_under_some_shell;
4: =pod
Signal SEGV at /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/Term/ReadLine/Gnu.pm line 112.
require Term/ReadLine/Gnu.pm called at (eval 7)[/usr/share/perl5/core_perl/Term/ReadLine.pm:340] line 1
Term::ReadLine::BEGIN() called at /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/Term/ReadLine/Gnu.pm line 0
eval {...} called at /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/Term/ReadLine/Gnu.pm line 0
eval 'use Term::ReadLine::Gnu; 1' called at /usr/share/perl5/core_perl/Term/ReadLine.pm line 340
require Term/ReadLine.pm called at /usr/share/perl5/core_perl/perl5db.pl line 6780
DB::setterm() called at /usr/share/perl5/core_perl/perl5db.pl line 1822
DB::_DB__read_next_cmd(undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/core_perl/perl5db.pl line 2741
DB::DB called at /usr/bin/core_perl/pod2html line 2
[1] 25276 abort perl -d /usr/bin/core_perl/pod2html

You can see the SEGV signal, and also that the debugger itself crashes at the end because it relies on ReadLine itself.

Investigating with GDB:

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x00007fc6c24505de in boot_Term__ReadLine__Gnu ()
from /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/auto/Term/ReadLine/Gnu/Gnu.so

(gdb) where
#0 0x00007fc6c24505de in boot_Term__ReadLine__Gnu ()
from /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/auto/Term/ReadLine/Gnu/Gnu.so
#1 0x00007fc6c362b5d6 in Perl_pp_entersub () from /usr/lib/perl5/core_perl/CORE/libperl.so
#2 0x00007fc6c3623bd6 in Perl_runops_standard () from /usr/lib/perl5/core_perl/CORE/libperl.so
#3 0x00007fc6c35b5290 in Perl_call_sv () from /usr/lib/perl5/core_perl/CORE/libperl.so
#4 0x00007fc6c35b7367 in Perl_call_list () from /usr/lib/perl5/core_perl/CORE/libperl.so
#5 0x00007fc6c359d4af in S_process_special_blocks () from /usr/lib/perl5/core_perl/CORE/libperl.so
#6 0x00007fc6c35ae98c in Perl_newATTRSUB_flags () from /usr/lib/perl5/core_perl/CORE/libperl.so
#7 0x00007fc6c35af4e0 in Perl_newATTRSUB () from /usr/lib/perl5/core_perl/CORE/libperl.so
#8 0x00007fc6c35b1af9 in Perl_utilize () from /usr/lib/perl5/core_perl/CORE/libperl.so
#9 0x00007fc6c35e0fa9 in Perl_yyparse () from /usr/lib/perl5/core_perl/CORE/libperl.so
#10 0x00007fc6c365bb12 in S_doeval () from /usr/lib/perl5/core_perl/CORE/libperl.so
#11 0x00007fc6c3667784 in Perl_pp_entereval () from /usr/lib/perl5/core_perl/CORE/libperl.so
#12 0x00007fc6c3623bd6 in Perl_runops_standard () from /usr/lib/perl5/core_perl/CORE/libperl.so
#13 0x00007fc6c35b5290 in Perl_call_sv () from /usr/lib/perl5/core_perl/CORE/libperl.so
#14 0x00007fc6c35b7367 in Perl_call_list () from /usr/lib/perl5/core_perl/CORE/libperl.so
#15 0x00007fc6c35b8981 in perl_destruct () from /usr/lib/perl5/core_perl/CORE/libperl.so
#16 0x0000000000400e01 in main ()


Also, if I try to run the perl debugger and I write "use Pod::Html;", gdb outputs:
Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x00007f4796aba1b3 in boot_HTML__Parser () from /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/auto/HTML/Parser/Parser.so

(note: to use gdb with Perl, find out the process number and launch "gdb -p PID"

I witnessed the problem on perl-5.20.0-5-x86_64.
Pod2Html works on perl-5.18.2-2-x86_64, but if I do "perl -d", then Ctrl+D, it crashes the same.

The Perl package depends on 'gdbm', 'db', and 'glibc'.