[rescue] Solaris 8 /9 patch server online / offline

[Peter Stokes]

Hi

I too have some some of the patch clusters from when we had a support contract.

If I remember correctly Unlike Sun, Oracle limited access to some of the older patch clusters. As stated they would shut down any non authorised server of their software.

As an illustration of how they use legal processes, in the EU/U.K. there is a a law which prevents folk importing and selling items from outside the EU/U.K., called grey imports. In this case this was Sun product brought in from the US etc. Exactly the same product as sold in the EU/U.K., just not originally sold here. Oracle have a list of what has/has not been sold here and if they find any trader selling grey parts new or used (even 20 years + old and of low value, think disk drive, card etc), they will throw the legal book at them. Result was hefty fine and trader has to check with Oracle that all parts sold are valid to be sold in EU/U.K. I know of at least one company who packed up trading because of it, others who became shadows of their former selfs. I assume Oracle have a team tasked with this. All in all a very different company to what Sun were and not a company I would choose to do business with.

Peter

Sent from my iPad

> On 18 Apr 2023, at 16:39, David Brownlee via rescue <rescue at sunhelp.org> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 18 Apr 2023 at 14:10, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> On 4/18/23 09:07, Rob Craig via rescue wrote:
>>> Darn. I hate Oracle so much. LOL
>> 
>>   Yes.  It's no laughing matter, I'm afraid.
>> 
>>> Does any have the full patches for Solaris 7,8,9 ? So at least I an have a local copy on my server for personal use for my machines.
>> 
>>   By "full patches" do you mean the recommended patch clusters, or
>> something else?  I have many of the clusters.
> 
> Presumably if someone had a support contract from Oracle which
> entitled them to all the patches, they could legitimately setup a
> local patch server, as long as they did not make it publicly available
> on the Internet?
> 
> On that assumption, someone could put together a tool which would
> verify a directory of patch files, and present them as a patch server
> - similar to how MAME, fs-usa and similar handle rom files.
> 
> That tool could legitimately be maintained and updated on github or
> similar, and used by anyone who had a set of patch files.
> 
> David
> 
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