I contacted Activestate's Licencing dept (there is an address on thier contact us page). I got the following reply this afternoon. All I can say is that sometimes it's good to complain.

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Edmund, yep thats my real name

Thank you for your enquiry.

The license terms you refer to in your email do not accurately reflect ActiveState's intent. Our original license agreements were based upon boilerplate terminology which is in the process of being reworded. The section you refer to will be replaced with the following wording:

"Termination. This License Agreement is effective until terminated. ActiveState may terminate this License immediately and without prior notice if you breach any term of this License or for any reason whatsoever. In the event of any termination or expiration, you agree to immediately destroy and/or erase the original and all copies of the Software, any accompanying documentation and License Keys and to discontinue their use and you will not retain or store the Software or any copies thereof, in any form or medium."

The license agreement for the Perl Dev Kit has already been updated (see http://www.activestate.com/Products/Perl_Dev_Kit/license_agreement.plex) and updated wording for our other license agreements will be posted shortly.

I assure you that ActiveState in no way intended the wording of our license agreements to establish a claim of ownership over works created using our products.

Please let me know if I can provide you with any further clarification and please feel free to pass along this information to others. Thank you again for bringing this to our attention.

Sally Whitehead License Administrator http://www.ActiveState.com