SUMMARY: No More Free Patches?

Warning: This is partly summary, partly, well... rant.

The original question/observation:

    But, near as I can tell, it is no longer possible to get *any*
    free patches for Solaris systems?

    I did the first step of Oracle's account creation thing,
    now I can't get past the contract number demand.  None of the
    information I gleaned from Andrew Williamson's thread seems to
    be helping.

And my "near as I could tell" observation was correct: One can no
longer obtain free patches, even critical or security patches,
for "Oracle" Solaris boxen.  Yes: Not even security patches.

Isn't *that* handy?

Ray Van Dolson suggested I try signing up for an Oracle MOS account.

Well, Ray, I've *been* trying.  Since before 11:30 EST this morning,
and starting at the URL Rick Smith kindly provided, I've sent three
emails to suggested Oracle email addresses, none of which to which
I've received a reply.  Plus I've spent nearly an hour on the phone,
complete with several mis-directions and a couple ending-up in
"Beehive" voicemail.

So Peter Stokes' observation: "Welcome to the brave new world of
Oracle, a right royal PITA for a number of drivers etc which used
to be open etc." was right on the money.

Rob De Langhe suggested Oracle's "strategy is clearly to make a
lot more money (you know... it's Oracle) from maintenance contracts."

That only works if you actually, you know, *sell* contracts, which
Oracle appears to wish to make as difficult for the prospective
buyer as possible.

Michael Horton welcomed me to Oracle (thanks!), confirmed "no more
free patches" and chided me: "Had you searched the archives, you
would have found this out.

Ooops!  Sorry, Michael.  My bad.

Two respondents offered to send me the needed patch.  At the
risk of Oracle sending their enforcers after the miscreants, I'll
forego naming the individuals here.  You know who you are and
thanks again!

Oracle: You're not making many friends amongst the Sun/Solaris
community this way.  I'm kinda thinkin' that, henceforth, perhaps
I'm better-off with "toy" PC hardware running free operating systems.
I can actually *get* support for those.

Thanks to everybody for their replies and their help!

And to all you out there who used to work for Sun: You have my
honest, sincere and heartfelt condolences :(.

Regards,
Jim

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