When you buy an Oracle Database Appliance – any type – or just a X-server (e.g. X7-2), you get free support for OracleVM, Oracle Solaris and Oracle Linux. But Oracle Linux has different flavours , like basic, premier and premier limited. What kind of support do you get when buying hardware from Oracle? Can Ksplice be used? Found out it’s documented, but not in the way I would like it to see.

When you buy hardware and you got the offer, Oracle Premier Support is included, and it will state the following in a footnote:

For servers, you get support and updates for the following system software: Oracle Solaris, Oracle Linux, and Oracle VM—all included

What does it mean? The Datasheet of Oracle System Support advantages:

Oracle Premier Support for Systems also provides
support, updates and new releases for Oracle system software including Oracle Solaris,
Oracle Linux, Oracle VM, and embedded server and storage software, so you can stay
up-to-date without separate fees.

Marketing stuff. When investigating the hardware systems support policies, some things are stated about Linux and Ksplice:

Oracle has made available at linux.oracle.com certain tools for download, that are required to enable the
applicable Oracle Linux security patches to be applied to your hardware system while the hardware system
is operating. These tools are subject to the “Tools Used to Perform Support Services” section below and
may be licensed under separate license terms.

In that particular section nothing is mentioned about Linux what so ever. You are almost obliged to use the tool by the way:

Your use of the tools is voluntary; however, if you do not
use the tool (i) you will not be able to download and apply security patches while your hardware system is
operating, and (ii) you will be required to reboot the hardware system in order to apply the security patch.

So what kind of Linux support is included? Finally the answer is in an Oracle Linux FAQ, page 3, on top:

Premier Support is included with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure subscriptions and Oracle Premier Support for Systems, at no additional cost. Please see the Oracle corporate price list for further details

What kind of Oracle Linux support on Oracle hardware is included Oracle linux included

And what do you get for the different Oracle Linux subscription levels:

What kind of Oracle Linux support on Oracle hardware is included image 48