Re: phpldapadmin 0.9.5, is it free?

[Brian Thomas Sniffen <bts@alum.mit.edu>]

Fabio Tranchitella <kobold@kobold.it> writes:

> Hi,
>   I'm the maintainer of phpldapadmin, a web-based tool for administering
> LDAP servers. Actually testing provides phpldapadmin 0.9.4b, which is
> available on SourceForge and is released with GPL license.
>
>   Some days ago the upstream maintainer has released a new version,
> 0.9.5, which not available on http://phpldapadmin.sourceforge.net but
> only on http://www.phpldapadmin.com. In order to download it, you 
> have to register into this website and choose "phpldapadmin for 
> Home Users".
>
> Here there is the text grabbed from that page:
>
> """
> While phpLDAPadmin costs 49.95 for commercial download, we are providing
> it for free to home users. If you purchase the commercial download, you
> get the added benefit of support from the original developers.
> """
>
> Here phpldapadmin seems "free as beer", so you can use it at home but
> not for commercial purposes. However The upstream tarball contains a
> LICENSE file which reports the GPL license.

It sounds like it is Free Software, but the author (or some
distributor) has decided to charge for support.  It might be polite to
contact the author himself and ask whether the home download is
actually licensed to you under the GPL, including the ability to
modify and distribute the code.

-Brian

-- 
Brian Sniffen                                       bts@alum.mit.edu