Is Kexi 'Free'?

[Chanchao]

I know this questions is probably better directed towards Kexi/KOffice,
but I feel comfortable with the community here and the overall
objectivity with which issues are debated..

Kexi is a new Database / RAD tool that's part of KOffice.  It's similar
to MS Access in that it's part of an office suite and can be used as a
database front-end.  Unlike MS Access however it's open source and
connects to a lot more databases than just itself and MS SQL Server. 

Chances are that anything I make with Kexi may have to be deployed on MS
Windows at least in some cases but more likely most cases.  Everywhere I
look on the Kexi site though, it seems the Windows version costs real
money. A demo is available, but it's severely restricted (number of
tables, objects, etc) and then it shows it charges PER LICENSE..!  (100
Euros / 119 US$, so not even cheap.. MS Access as a standalone doesn't
cost THAT much more)

( http://www.kexi.pl/wiki/index.php/Kexi_for_MS_Windows ) 

How can this be?  I always thought something is either open source or it
isn't..  So what's going on here?   I've never seen this kind of
limitation before in software; Open Office for example is of course
entirely Free no matter what OS it runs on.

Kexi does explain things here:
http://www.kexi.pl/wiki/index.php/The_cost_of_Kexi_for_MS_Windows

Apparently it's 'free' on WIndows if you compile it yourself, but, they
say, "you would need non-free tools (MS Visual C++ and others) that are
many times more expensive than a Kexi license".

Now is that weird or what..  The company I work for owns those tools and
it's easy to just come in Saturday and compile the lot. So then it IS
'free' on Windows...   I find this all very strange, and that they do
make everything available free not just for Linux but ALSO (in the
future) Mac OSX. 

Cheers,
Chanchao