Re: Desupport

Peter van Rijn wrote:

> I have been working for Oracle Support for three years, and although Sybrand
> is right that *officially* no patches are sent for unsupported versions I
> also know that I, and many of my former colleagues, were willing to send an
> old patchset, *if available*. And the latter will be the hardest part
> because 8.0.4 is quite some time ago, and if Support doesn't have a local
> copy of the patchset 'somewhere on the shelf' it migth be hard to obtain
> one.
>
> And yes, if you call they will no doubt urge you to upgrade, and right they
> are: nobody wants a serious application to run on an unsupported database
> version (says the man who is still administering eight 7.3.4 databases
> ;-)) ), and especially not if that version is 8.0.4!
>
> regards,
> Peter
>
> "Sybrand Bakker" <postbus_at_sybrandb.demon.nl> schreef in bericht
> news:uvmrjukfv1s2rrptj72ibvq60gj5hebm0f_at_4ax.com...
> > On 23 Jul 2002 14:38:34 -0700, terrificbowler_at_yahoo.com (A. Howser)
> > wrote:
> >
> > >What exactly does de-support mean? I've seen a lot of discussion of
> > >it, but no definition. Specifically, here is my problem:
> > >
> > >Government client has a contract from 1999 stating that we have to
> > >develop this app on Oracle 8.0.4 on NT. We don't want to upgrade,
> > >first because changing the contract would be a big hassle, and second
> > >because they would demand that all of the software be regression
> > >tested.
> > >
> > >However, we only recently realized that 8.0.4 and OLE DB do not play
> > >nice together. I saw in a post that there are patches to upgrade to
> > >8.0.4.4 that can fix this. Does "desupported" mean that Oracle will
> > >not give us these patches? I would think it does, but I need to know
> > >for sure.
> > >
> > >Also, if that is the case, does someone have those patches lying
> > >around that they could give to us?
> >
> > Desupport means they will drop the phone on you and they won't give
> > you patches. Extended Assistance Support means that they will give
> > your patches for *known* bugs, Extended Correction Support: well it
> > pretty much says it. Still no backports though, IIRC. A backport is a
> > bug solved in a subsequent release ported back to your release.
> > 8.0.4 was deleted in a few months time. I don't think anyone has
> > patches.
> >
> >
> >
> > Hth
> >
> >
> > Sybrand Bakker, Senior Oracle DBA
> >
> > To reply remove -verwijderdit from my e-mail address

And then there is the ugly problem of going out with your resume and telling recruiters and hiring managers that you have ten years experience on totally obsolete versions of a product. That is one of the fastest ways to send your resume to the circular file.

Daniel Morgan Received on Wed Jul 24 2002 - 10:23:21 CDT