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ActiveState Returns to Open Source Roots

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the if-you-get-lost-return-to-the-beginning dept.

constab writes "ActiveState, the Sophos-owned company that makes free distributions and commercial programming tools for programming languages like Perl, Python, PHP, Tcl and Ruby, has been sold to a Canadian VC firm. According to the article, ActiveState will go back to its open-source roots and continue development of ActivePerl, ActivePython and ActiveTcl. A full set of Mac OS X on Intel downloads is also in the works."

1 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Re:i luv these guys, but they are doomed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Your argument is that IBM released a free IDE and ran a small OSS company out of business. Go Open Source!!

    No, the real reason they are doomed is that Perl and TCL popularity is declining, while Python is is still years away from the mainstream. (And if Python does become popular on Windows, it will likely be the .NET version.)

    Basically they've hitched themselves to a bunch of losers, so without an installed base to rape (as with COBOL et al), there's not going to be any big payday here.