[rescue] Solaris licensing (was:Basement Cleaning)

[hike]

First, the license only covers the use of the Oracle product--that is, what
ever products the  solaris-cluster-express-license covers.  It does not
address the applications and utilities that one installed and uses in the
Solaris environment, of example.

Obviously, you aren't a lawyer.  To ask that question belies a lack of
understanding what operating systems do, what they are composed of, and how
they are used.  Example, Windows and Solaris do the same thing.  Of course,
one is inherently better.  Apps run on both Windows and Solaris without any
infringement of the publisher's license.  Plus, there was a time when
Solaris existed but the bash shell did not.  The old timers got along quite
well with sh, ksh, and others.  "vi" predated emacs and vim.  None of the
programs you mentioned are necessary to adequately or professionally run a
Solaris system.

Second, the issue with Oracle's devouring of Sun is not that Oracle/Sun
products can't be used any longer but in getting patches.  When I left the
Solaris arena, all patches required a service contract/update contract/etc.
 Whereas Sun charged for their OS and Product patches, they provided
security patches were freely downloaded.  Now Oracle charges for both the
OS & Product patches as well as security patches.  The cost of a hardware
maintenance contract was 1/8 of the MSRP of the server/workstation.  The
software contracts for each server were $1000 for 3 years IIRC.  So you can
use your Solaris machine to your hearts content.  You just can't upgraded
it or secure it legally.  That is, you have a license for a static
installation of Solaris.

If  you are in the business environment, buy the license.


On Thu, Sep 4, 2014 at 10:46 AM, Andrew Gaylard <ag at computer.org> wrote:

> On 08/31/14 17:07, John Carr wrote:
> > Honestly, Oracle has made having Sun boxes not-fun since I can't get a
> hobbyist license or
> > patches for Solaris. I think that for now, I'll pass.
> Are you sure?  I'm looking at this link (which Google provided, so I'm
> not 100% sure that it applies to S10 and /or S11):
>
>
> http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/licenses/solaris-cluster-express-license-167852.html
>
> which says
>
>     /*LICENSE RIGHTS */
>     /Except for any included software package or file that is licensed
>     to you by Oracle under different license terms, we grant you a
>     perpetual (unless terminated as provided in this agreement),
>     nonexclusive, nontransferable, limited License to use the Programs
>     only for the purpose of developing, testing, prototyping and
>     demonstrating your applications, and not for any other purpose. If
>     You are an educational institution vested with the power to confer
>     official high school, associate, bachelor, master and/or doctorate
>     degrees, or local equivalent, ("Degree(s)"), You may also use the
>     Programs as part of Your educational curriculum for students
>     enrolled in Your Degree program(s) solely as required for the
>     conferral of such Degree (collectively "Educational Use")./
>
> ...which says that "/developing, testing, prototyping and demonstrating
> your applications/" is fine with them.  Forever ("/perpetual/").  It's
> also pretty reasonable for use by educational institutions.
>
> Of course, IANAL. And it doesn't explicitly permit email, web browsing,
> listening to music files, or using OpenOffice, all of which are the kind
> of things that we hobbyists do.  But it also doesn't explicitly permit
> using bash, xterm, emacs, vim, or ssh either, without which nothing can
> be done anyway.
>
> Am I on shaky ground? Should I wipe Solaris off my SPARC box, and go
> with Linux (or *BSD)?
>
> --
> Andrew Gaylard
> _______________________________________________
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