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Oracle Solaris Express 11 license

852553Apr 4 2011 — edited Apr 30 2011
Hi,
Can I use Solaris Express 11 in production environment without buying the support subscription from Oracle?
Can I use older versions of Solaris (9 and 10) in production environment without buying the support subscription from Oracle?
Thanks,
Tom
This post has been answered by 781486 on Apr 30 2011
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Comments

alan.pae
I can make up any answer that I want and when you're audited for compliance with licensing and you point to this forum post they'll just laugh at you and bill you accordingly and probably fine you as well.

Contact sales and get a definitive answer. And then get it in writing.

alan
852553
Yh, well you can make up any answer to any question. It's my responsibility what will I do with it. I hope that someone will answer the question, not question the idea of internet forums ... I'm looking for information here becuase at the oracle's sites it's unclear for me.
Cheers,
Tom

Edited by: IroeN on Apr 5, 2011 10:23 PM
816887
The FAQ of Oracle Solaris 11 Express states that should you wish to deploy it in a production environment, you need to purchase a support contract. While I'm not a lawyer, it does sound pretty clear... .

Regards

Vincent
852553
Thanks for answering. I'm sorry, I didn't mention that I have read the same FAQ before posting here, but I'm wandering that the Express addition is a little bit counter intuitive if you look at other products from Oracle or other companies. And still I dont know what with the license for Solaris 10. Anyone is using the free version of Solaris 9, 10 ? Anyone is using Oracle Solaris 11 Express in production ? Did you buy the support or is there a way to use it for free without the support?
Thanks
ajmaidak
Here's my understanding of the situation.

There are no free releases of Solaris 8 and Solaris 9. You need to have a license, typically this was bundled with the hardware you purchased from Sun.

You can run Solaris 10 u1 through u8 with a zero cost license you aquired from Sun when you downloaded the software.

Solaris 10u9 and Solaris 11 express require a license/subscription for production use.

Edited by: ajmaidak on Apr 7, 2011 10:19 AM
1 person found this helpful
852553
Thanks for claryfing the information about all the flavours and licensing rules for the releases of Solaris. I have box version of Solaris 10 11/06 (probably that came with one of the servers or maybe we had a subscribtion in the past) and a box of Solaris 9. Well I hope that my management will share the view of Oracle's vision from here for example http://sstallion.blogspot.com/2010/08/opensolaris-is-dead.html and that I will be able to continue to work with those systems without a headache of wandering about the uncertain future and a risk of staying with obsolete technology.

I have visited the Oracle Store and under the Solaris category there is no information about how to obtain a license for SPARC platform.

Edited by: IroeN on Apr 8, 2011 9:20 AM
781486
Answer
Each system you've installed had a license attached to it. You must follow those rules.

For older systems, our experience is that Oracle maintained whichever terms were agreed with Sun and/or upgraded the support contracts to current plans (which usually are better and/or the same).

For new systems it's pretty clear you'll need a support contract from Oracle.

Just to have yourself covered, I suggest you submit the old systems you're interested to keep running to an Oracle rep and ask for their opinion. Licenses can be tricky and a good sales rep will have enough experience answering the same question from other customers to be able to help you properly.

As for Sol11 "Express", it also requires a license even though people may view it as Solaris11's little brother. Oracle isn't as active as I expected in selling Sol11 Express but they are nevertheless offering official support. When Solaris 11 comes out later this year they may change things (perhaps put Sol11 Express on a fast dev track, make it free, etc). For the time being, you need a support contract for production systems.
Marked as Answer by 852553 · Sep 27 2020
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