diff --git a/pkgs/development/libraries/apache-activemq/5.8.nix b/pkgs/development/libraries/apache-activemq/5.8.nix
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..7e4644895e96
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/development/libraries/apache-activemq/5.8.nix
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+import ./recent.nix
+  rec {
+    version = "5.8.0";
+    sha256 = "12a1lmmqapviqdgw307jm07vw1z5q53r56pkbp85w9wnqwspjrbk";
+    mkUrl = name: "mirror://apache/activemq/apache-activemq/${version}/${name}-bin.tar.gz";
+  }
diff --git a/pkgs/development/libraries/apache-activemq/default.nix b/pkgs/development/libraries/apache-activemq/recent.nix
similarity index 75%
rename from pkgs/development/libraries/apache-activemq/default.nix
rename to pkgs/development/libraries/apache-activemq/recent.nix
index 2f2792dec140..a69880233433 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/libraries/apache-activemq/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/libraries/apache-activemq/recent.nix
@@ -1,12 +1,13 @@
+{ version, sha256, mkUrl }:
+# use a function to make the source url, because the url schemes differ between 5.8.0 and greater
 { stdenv, fetchurl }:
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   name = "apache-activemq-${version}";
-  version = "5.8.0";
 
   src = fetchurl {
-    url = "mirror://apache/activemq/apache-activemq/${version}/${name}-bin.tar.gz";
-    sha256 = "12a1lmmqapviqdgw307jm07vw1z5q53r56pkbp85w9wnqwspjrbk";
+    url = mkUrl name;
+    inherit sha256;
   };
 
   phases = [ "unpackPhase" "installPhase" ];
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
index 9d87029b7153..8f10895d9d9b 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
@@ -5981,7 +5981,7 @@ let
 
   acl = callPackage ../development/libraries/acl { };
 
-  activemq = callPackage ../development/libraries/apache-activemq { };
+  activemq = callPackage ../development/libraries/apache-activemq/5.8.nix { };
 
   adns = callPackage ../development/libraries/adns { };