Newbie question on being "crippled"

I am just playing with PHP at the moment and all my code is just run on a
local apache non-internet server. Most of my PHP use at the moment is
just reading about it but it looks like fun and an alternate to Perl for
CGI stuff.

But, I keep coming across statements that PHP is deliberately crippled
"for commercial reasons." I haven't quite resolved whether those
statements are just a troll blab or what. So far, I can't tell that it is
any slower than Perl for building standard HTML pages.

Doesn't make sense. PHP, like Perl, is free. As near as I can find, it
isn't owned by anyone. But you can BUY a program to uncripple it? WTH?
Anybody clue me in?

Araminska
.

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