You need to look at your actual license contracts with Oracle and see if
they are listed "perpetual" meaning you own them in perpetuity. If they are
not termed as perpetual, then yes you would not be able to use them on the
servers in question. Really depends on how your specific contract was
written.
However, you also have to look at all your Oracle contracts and if your
company ever signed one that references the internal contracts web page for
Oracle which Oracle can update at will. It is on those contract pages that
Oracle actually states you must maintain all licenses you own under support
to have support at all on any license. This of course is to stop people from
maintaining support for one license and using it for all other licenses.
Went through a contract negotiation with Oracle a few years back and wanted
to drop licenses on a single server as the new Software for that server had
the Oracle licenses included but was precluded from doing so based on the
contract language in 1 of 8 contracts the company had signed for licensing
and support. The only way for it to happen was to remove the licenses from
the server in question and sign off with Oracle that we wanted to remove
that license from out contract, which of course wasn't useful as we were
trying to not re-up the licensing for the server as it was going to be
replaced 3 months after its contract renewal date.
Also there is other language on that contracts page that states any time
there is a change to a contract, Oracle can renegotiate the price of the
overall contracts. Normally means, you never pay less than you are already
paying for less licenses and support.
This is why contracts really need to be reviewed by lawyers.
Matthew Parker
Chief Technologist
Dimensional DBA
425-891-7934 (cell)
D&B 047931344
CAGE 7J5S7
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From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of ed lewis
Sent: Thursday, February 04, 2016 8:35 AM
To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: dropping oracle support - can't use software ?
Hello,
We've been asked to explore the possibility of dropping Oracle
support for a specific application. The plan is to retire this application
sometime in the next 18-24 months, but management is looking some
money now.
The support contracts for this environment run over $300k.
I spoke to an Oracle contract person about canceling our support.
This person mentioned that if we do, we will not be legally able
to run any Oracle software on these servers.
Has anyone come across this ? We've purchased the license
so why can't we run the software, but drop the support ?
Your feedback is appreciated.
Ed
