Does Oracle support downlaods?

Question

An Oracle Support Analyst recently told me that downloads from
TechNet are not officially supported by Oracle, after I had
created a TAR for a 9i database problem which had been installed
from such a download. Unless I reinstalled from CDs they were
unwilling to progress the TAR, unless I could come up with a
fully reproducable test case which would have been difficult as
it was an intermittent problem. The question is where on OTN
does it say that downloads are unsupported and does this include
the patches on Metalink? Are Oracle effectively saying that we
shouldn't be downloading software. The problem with ordering
CD's is that they only seem to be available weeks/months after
the download is first made available and patches often need to
be installed in a hurry.

Answer 1

Let me try that again...
An Oracle Support Analyst recently told me that downloads from
TechNet are not officially supported by Oracle, after I had
created a TAR for a 9i database problem which had been installed
from such a download. Unless I reinstalled from CDs they were
unwilling to progress the TAR, unless I could come up with a
fully reproducable test case which would have been difficult as
it was an intermittent problem. The question is where on OTN
does it say that downloads are unsupported and does this include
the patches on Metalink? Are Oracle effectively saying that we
shouldn't be downloading software. The problem with ordering
CD's is that they only seem to be available weeks/months after
the download is first made available and patches often need to
be installed in a hurry. I'm not the normal moderator of the OTN forum (I guess I'm the
abnormal one), but I was curious too and I went to the download
and grabbed the license agreement. If you want to comment, send
email to [email protected]
Check out the bold section.
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