changing passowrd on LDAP backend?

Running several FreeBSD 7.0-BETA2/3 boxes with OpenLDAP 2.3.39-backend 
drove me into a problem:
No local user is capable of neither changing his password nor shell or 
GECOS although this is allowed by users to do in LDAP ACLs.
Looking for a solution in mailing lists I found only one - patching 
usr.bin/passwd/passwd.c. Doing so, users were capable of changing their 
passwords on LDAP backedn. Without this "patch" (simply commenting out a 
line and inserting a fprintf()-line for convenience) someone will get an 
error message only local users may change their passwords.

So, what is wrong with passwd.c not to be capable of changing passwords 
with an OpenLDAP backend by default?

Regards,
Oliver