On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 10:48 AM, Avi Miller <avi.miller@gmail.com> wrote:

Oracle has a much simpler support structure: our binaries, updates and errata are all free to download and distribute. We provide a public yum service at http://public-yum.oracle.com (which is delivered via Akamai). This makes Oracle Linux the only Enterprise distribution that can be distributed by an ISV/IHV at no cost, which makes it excellent for appliances. We also don't have limitations on virtual guests. If you have a support subscription for the physical machine (and you only need one), you can run as many guests as you can cram onto the hardware. :)

We also provide a bunch of additional tools at no cost: Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Control is free to download and use to provision, patch, manage, monitor and alert on your Oracle Linux fleet, Oracle Clusterware support is included, Oracle OCFS2 clustered filesystem is included, XFS support is included with Premier support subscriptions (but the software is included regardless). So, all the bits you need to pay Red Hat or SUSE extra for, we include at no cost.

Hmm, a compelling offer and food for thought.

We have recently been informed that the RHEL "Self Support" Update subscription is no longer able to be applied to our production systems. It can only be used for test/dev systems. Think that may have been the rule from the beginning....?

That particular license was around $390 AUD per annum last time purchased. We have used that to update a couple of prod Servers with simple needs. No Redhat Online Support required. We can do that no longer according to the rules.

That issue combined with the statements above really tip the equation in Oracles favour....