8.2. What Is PECL?
PECL (PHP Extension Community Library) is a spin-off of PEAR, and is primarily used to house groups of functions that are no longer bundled with the default installation of PHP. As of PHP 5, these extensions can be downloaded and installed separately from the regular PHP download. It should be noted, however, that some of the extensions currently residing in PECL are now bundled with the default installation (such as SQLite), or were extensions submitted by someone outside the PHP core team, and were never bundled with PHP (such as POP3).
Because most PECL extensions used to be a part of the standard list of PHP functions, the standard dictates that they are written using PHP's coding standards (as opposed to PEAR's). While the general public can still submit packages, the process for submission includes prior approval by the pecl-dev mailing list.
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