I'm not an Oracle hater (I just dislike them a little). But if this is true, then they have an economic incentive to _not_ issue free fixes in a timely manner. Or, (not to sound to tinfoil-hattish) to release _slightly_ broken things that don't impact an individual installation, but impact clusters.

Again, I'm not saying that they _will_ do the above; just that there is economic incentive for them to bring users into paying for support, and as long as they give it away for free, no one will bite.

There's an old wives saying (used in a different context), that says "why would a guy buy a cow, if he can get the milk for free?"