Oracle professionals know that the top two information and support sites for running Oracle products are Oracle Technology Network (OTN) and My Oracle Support (MOS).
• OTN is free for anyone, and provides discussion forums, white papers and free downloads of base-release software under the developer license.
• MOS requires a paid software license and a support contract. It offers technical support notes, access to errors, request tracking and patches. It is the only place where you can get critical updates and patches to, for example, bring a database 10.2.0.1 through 10.2.0.4.
Many people are starting to learn Oracle, or are out of work and are no longer associated with a support contract. Such people could clearly benefit from access to the MOS to read support notes and solve problems they are experiencing while experimenting with Oracle products under the developer license.
My Oracle Support allows you to search the Oracle knowledge base, manage service requests (SRs) when you need help, download patches, interact with support communities, and leverage proactive systems management capabilities. To use My Oracle Support, you must create an Oracle Single Sign On (SSO) account and register at least one support identifier (SI) with My Oracle Support.