I --'d the original post.

If you read carefully, you'll see that ActiveState Perl is free to download and use. If you persue their license you'll see:

Licensing
The ActivePerl Package is covered by the ActiveState Community License
+.

The source code used in the ActivePerl Package comprises of both Open 
+Source and proprietary software components.

All the Open Source components used in the ActivePerl Package are dist
+ributed by their original authors under the same licensing terms as P
+erl. The following is a full list of such components: 

Perl 

Bundled Perl modules: 
Archive-Tar 
Compress-Zlib 
Data-Dump 
Digest-HMAC 
Digest-MD2 
Digest-MD4 
Digest-SHA1 
File-CounterFile 
Font-AFM 
HTML-Parser 
HTML-Tagset 
HTML-Tree 
libwin32 
libwww-perl 
MD5 
PPM 
SOAP-Lite 
Tk 
URI 
XML-Parser 
XML-Simple 

ActiveState Corp., has chosen to use all Open Source content in the Ac
+tivePerl Package under the terms of the Artistic License.

All other components included in the ActivePerl Package are original w
+orks of ActiveState Corp., and may be used under the terms of the Act
+iveState Community License.
[download]

Here is the ActiveState License FAQ. I would point out:

When you download and install a language distribution, the license is 
+included. It is not necessary to register or install a separate licen
+se in order to use the product. You are given the option to register 
+when you download the product, but this registration is only for the 
+purpose of receiving email announcements regarding new product releas
+es.

When you download and install a programming or productivity tool, you 
+must register in order to receive a license that will activate the pr
+oduct. You cannot use the product without installing a license. Time-
+limited trial licenses are available for all products. Some products,
+ including Komodo and the Perl Dev Kit, have an educational license t
+hat can be purchased at a discount.
[download]

ActiveState Perl is "free to use". But they want to charge you for their custom programming tools. What's new with that? When you want to write in C++, you can't demand a copy of Visual C++.

Cheers,
ibanix

$ echo '$0 & $0 &' > foo; chmod a+x foo; foo;