what i wrote is my personal experience and i stay by it. this product does/did require activation after every few weeks, check the screenshots of some of my activity. activation is normally quick and painless if everything is ok. but it is not always so smooth. i had situation where ths did not work and I had half finished project. so i was emailing them to have it resolved which they did. unfortunately this took several days, and that - was not good. if it was 30-60minutes, it would be ok, but i just can't allow to sit here idle and roll my thumbs for couple of days. free or not, i prefer software without DRM, that's all.
i re-checked help for clues about activation and it only says how to do it not what conditions reset activation. i think inactivity maybe one of them. anyway, latest version is installed and activated so i should be able to report in a month of so if it expires again.
as for gerber output, it wasn't there either. i just run update and yes, now it does support gerber. menu option was there but it was disabled so only output options were DXF and IDF.
don't take me wrong, i am thankful that sparkfun did offer this for free, i was using it. i see they are working on it quite a bit. additions are not only more output formats, there is 3D view and interface to spice (if one is installed).
it is a very nice product, if they remove need for activation or only require it during product installation, i'd have no problem using it. they must have reason for it. as a user i can tell what i do or don't like but i cannot tell them to change things they do for free to suit me.