Bob Levine, InDesign Secrets:

There’s a lot of chatter on the internet today, including Twitter, claiming that Adobe is now giving CS2 away for free.

This is simply not true. What is happening is that Adobe has shut down the activation servers for CS2. Because of that, CS2 users were unable to activate if they reinstalled the software. In order to allow these people to continue to use their software Adobe has made available, for download, CS2 software which does not require activation.

Earlier today we (and many other sites) reported that Adobe is giving away its Creative Suite 2 software – long out of date but still useful if you have an older Mac.

Turns out this isn’t the case. Speaking on behalf of Adobe, principal scientist Dov Isaacs cleared up the confusion in a recent post on their forums.

You have heard wrong! Adobe is absolutely not providing free copies of CS2!

What is true is that Adobe is terminating the activation servers for CS2 and that for existing licensed users of CS2 who need to reinstall their software, copies of CS2 that don’t require activation but do require valid serial numbers are available. See <http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1114930>.