Ooops, here goes the patch :-)
--- ext/Encode/lib/Encode/Supported.pod.orig Sat Mar 23 01:51:30 2002
+++ ext/Encode/lib/Encode/Supported.pod Sun Mar 24 10:12:25 2002
@@ -202,55 +202,87 @@
=head1 Encoding Classification (by Anton Tagunov)
-Encodings
+This section tries to classify the supported encodings by their
+applicability for information exchange over the Internet and to
+choose the most suitable aliases to name them in the context of
+such communication.
+
+Encoding names
+
+ US-ASCII UTF-8
+ ISO-8859-* KOI8-R
+ Shift_JIS EUC-JP ISO-2022-JP
+ EUC-KR
+ Big5
+
+are L<http://www.iana.org/assignments/character-sets>-registered as
+preferred MIME names and may probably be used over the Internet.
+C<Shift_JIS> is no longer Microsft proprietary since it has been
+officialized by JIS X 0208-1997. It is probably the most wide
+spread encoding for Japanese on the Internet.
+
+ EUC-CN
+
+has not been registered with IANA (as of march 2002) but
+seems to be supported by major web browsers. (IANA has registered
+this encoding as C<GB2312>, but C<gb2312> currently has a different
+meaning to the C<Encode> module. It will probably become alias to
+C<EUC-CN> in the future; until then it is safer to avoid using
+C<gb2312> as encoding name within Perl).
+
+ UTF-16
+ KOI8-U (http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2319.html)
+
+are IANA-registered (C<UTF-16> even as a preferred MIME name)
+but probably should be avoided as encoding for web pages due to
+lack of browser support.
- US-ASCII UTF-8 KOI8-R ISO-8859-*
- ISO-2022-CN ISO-2022-JP Big5
- EUC-CN EUC-JP EUC-KR
-
-are <http://www.iana.org/assignments/character-sets>-registered as
-preferred MIME names and may probably be used over the Internet. So is
-
- Shift_JIS
-
-but despite its wide spread it bears the label of being
-Microsft proprietary -- was. Now Shift JIS is official as of
-JIS X 0208-1997.
-
- UTF-16 KOI8-U
-
-are IANA-registered preferred MIME names but probably
-shoule be avoided as encoding for web pages due to lack of
-browser support.
-
- ISO-2022 (http://www.ecma.ch/ecma1/STAND/ECMA-035.HTM)
- ISO-2022-JP-1 (http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2237.html)
ISO-IR-165 (http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1345.html)
GBK
VISCII
- GB 12345 (only plains 1 and 2 available)
- GB 18030
- CNS 11643
+ GB 12345
+ GB 18030 (*) (see links bellow)
+ EUC-TW (*)
are totally valid encodings but not registered at IANA.
+The names under which they are listed here are probably the
+most widely-known names for these encodings and are recommended
+names.
+
- BIG5PLUS
- EUC-JP-0212 (Encode::lib::Encode::Tcl::Extended)
-are a bit proprietary
+=for comment this used to be listed as supported but
+do not work @15457 when it's clear they will be uncommented
+or deleted - Anton
+ISO-2022 (http://www.ecma.ch/ecma1/STAND/ECMA-035.HTM)
+ISO-2022-JP-1 (http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2237.html)
+CNS 11643 (only plains 1 and 2 available)
+
+ BIG5PLUS (*)
+
+is a bit proprietary name. C<(*)>-marked encodings belong to
+C<Encode::HanExtra> available from CPAN.
You may probably get some info on CJK encodings at
brief description for most of the mentioned CJK encodings
-
-F<http://www.debian.org.ru/doc/manuals/intro-i18n/ch-codes.html>
+L<http://www.debian.org.ru/doc/manuals/intro-i18n/ch-codes.html>
several years old, but still useful
-
-F<http://www.oreilly.com/people/authors/lunde/cjk_inf.html>
+L<http://www.oreilly.com/people/authors/lunde/cjk_inf.html>
and some in-depth reading for the heroes :-)
-F<http://www.ecma.ch/ecma1/STAND/ECMA-035.HTM> (eq ISO-2022)
+L<http://www.ecma.ch/ecma1/STAND/ECMA-035.HTM> (eq C<ISO-2022>)
+
+gives brief info on C<EUC-CN>, C<GBK> and mostly on C<GB 18030>
+L<ftp://ftp.oreilly.com/pub/examples/nutshell/cjkv/pdf/GB18030_Summary.pdf>
+
+The nature of information in this section is most fragile and
+error-prone; I<probably> is the most popular adverb :)
+Please feel free to send your comments, disagreements and
+additions to L<...>. (Note however,
+that the mission of this document is to cover the
+C<Encode>-supported encodings only.
=head1 See Also