Re: Oracle Personal license

On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 07:35:24 -0800, josrcooper wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm doing some development work in Oracle Personal, under the Trial
> license.
>
> Now, I think I'm far enough along, and committed, that I want to buy.
> I went to Oracle's site and saw that a one year license is $80US, but I
> don't really see what that buys me. I mean, I know that I'll have an
> "official, licensed" copy--but does that include me calling up Oracle's
> tech support and saying, "Gee, this is probably a dumb question,
> but..." or what?
>

An Oracle License is simply a 'right to use' the product in a specific situation. Since Oracle holds the copyright, and possible patents, on the technology, they have the right to control the use and they do so by asking us to pay for that right. (Seems reasonable to me.)

An Oracle Production license, such as you are looking at, also includes the right to purchase Support as well as purchase media.

Support is priced at a percent of license price, and gives you right to access Metalink, get unlimited questions answered, and (they've changed this slightly - used to be a separate option on Support but may be rolled into baseline again) download patches and get free replacement media after the first set. Support is repurchased annually for one year.

Note that the $80 you quote only provides you the right to use it for 1 year (or whatever the term) and then you, by your agreement, you will stop using it or purchase a new license. The slightly more expensive 'perpetual' license gives you right to use 'forever'.

Both term and perpetual licenses are valid only for that specific version. A valid Support agreement then modifies the version restriction to permit use of any version available in the supported period.

-- 
Hans Forbrich                           
Canada-wide Oracle training and consulting
mailto: Fuzzy.GreyBeard_at_gmail.com   
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