$ fgrep 2003 perlhist.pod
 Rafael   5.6.2-RC1     2003-Nov-08
          5.6.2         2003-Nov-15     Fix new build issues
          5.8.1-RC1     2003-Jul-10
          5.8.1-RC2     2003-Jul-11
          5.8.1-RC3     2003-Jul-30
          5.8.1-RC4     2003-Aug-01
          5.8.1-RC5     2003-Sep-22
          5.8.1         2003-Sep-25
 Nicholas 5.8.2-RC1     2003-Oct-27
          5.8.2-RC2     2003-Nov-03
          5.8.2         2003-Nov-05
 Hugo     5.9.0         2003-Oct-27
[download]

Doesn't look dead to me. (Update: credit where credit is due: the grep doesn't show it, but 5.8.1 was by Jarkko)