ActiveState has historically provided enduring open-source language core distributions, some spanning nearly two decades. However, every core language version has a community-defined end-of-life date. Beyond this point, community support and critical security updates cease.
Languages that pass their end-of-life date are referred to as “Legacy versions”. As a result of the continued commercial use of these languages and ongoing support requests, ActiveState has updated the Terms of Service to accommodate commercial licensing for these use cases. The Terms of Service applied when a language version was under community support are not applicable once a language reaches its end-of-life, and/or if the distributions are used for commercial purposes.
ActiveState recommends upgrading to community-supported language versions for commercial use. Details on how to upgrade can be found here.
As an alternative to upgrading, ActiveState offers Enterprise-level Extended Support for a selection of end-of-life languages. This offering requires an Enterprise Tier Platform License and a Managed Distribution of the language core. Note that not all legacy versions will qualify for Extended Support.
For all language versions that are end-of-life and are not under an Extended Support agreement, a “Team Tier ActiveState Legacy Language Versions” license (also known as a “Legacy Community Edition (CE) Offline Installer” license) is required and mandatory for their continued commercial use, whether or not the software is already installed for use in place. The Offline Installer license or Team Tier ActiveState Legacy Language Version license must be included with either an ActiveState Enterprise or Team Tier Platform License, and will be subject to applicable Terms of Service. Contact us to find out more.
As of Q1 2024 Languages in the Legacy status include:
Each year more language versions age into the legacy status and are retired from Extended Support. This means that previous renewal of language cores may not apply and additional licensing may be required.
All up-to-date subscriptions to the ActiveState Enterprise Tier Platform License include Offline Installer licensing. The ActiveState Team Tier requires the Offline installer license or a Team Tier ActiveState Legacy Language Versions license as an add-on to the base subscription. You can learn more on our Pricing page.
If an update is not possible, ActiveState recommends customers renew for multi-year terms or upgrade to Enterprise subscriptions if they continue to use legacy languages. If your use case is not commercial, you can submit it for review as an Eligible Open Source project.