Re: End of "Free" Solaris binary licence program - now it's free.

From: Scott Howard (scott_at_hunterlink.net.au)
Date: 02/20/05 

Date: 20 Feb 2005 00:38:32 GMT

Dave <nospam@nowhere.com> wrote:
> Sorry if this is old news (I've not checked the newsgroups recently) but
> can't see it in Google Groups.

It is old news in that it was announced months ago, but Google Groups
will give you an interesting number of people who were claiming it was
obviously a con/lie/scam or some other such attempt, and that it would
never happen. Strangely we haven't heard much from those people in the
past few weeks - probably still trying to remove their foot from their
mouths!

> Instead it would appear (although I have not gone over the full terms of
> the license) that Soaris 10 really is free, even on multi-processor
> machines, under a 'Rights to Use' license.

Correct. Completely free, for any number of CPUs, for any use (including
commercial).
The regular updates to the OS (ie, the roughly quarterly releases) will
also be free, as will security patches. Non-security patches (if you want
them more frequently than the quarterly updates) will only be available
with a support contract, as will telephone support.

> It would be nice if Sun could give people the option of using the same
> license on Solaris 9 binaries, so those who don't have Solaris 9 and get
> an old machine can use it.

Sun is driving hard to get people onto Solaris 10. Giving out the same
licenses for S9 would erode adaption, even if only a little.

Realistically, no sun4m machines have been shipped for over 6.5 years (SS5)
with most of the common models (such as the SS20) not having shipped for
almost 8 years - it's not like we're dropping support for anything
recent :)

  Scott.

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