From PC World: PC owners probably don’t give firmware updates much thought and rarely, if ever, seek them out directly. Enthusiasts and small businesses running low-end servers, on the other hand, have a keener interest in firmware since sometimes skipping an update can be fatal for their investment.
But getting those firmware updates for Hewlett-Packard’s servers are about to get a little more difficult. HP says that beginning next Wednesday, February 19, it will effectively start charging for access to firmware updates through the company’s support center. Only customers with an active warranty, an HP Care Pack subscription, or support agreement will be able to download the updates directly from HP.
Previously, HP firmware updates were freely available.
“This decision reinforces our goal to provide access to the latest HP firmware, which is valuable intellectual property, for our customers who have chosen to maximize and protect their IT investments,” HP’s Mary McCoy vice president for technology services said in a blog post.
It’s not clear if HP will restrict access to critical firmware updates that are sometimes necessary to keep a device from misbehaving.
As ZDNet’s Ed Bott—who first reported this story—pointed out, a flaw in ProLiant servers prevented them from running Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2, and resulted in the system hanging when it tried to boot with those operating systems installed. A firmware update eventually fixed the issue, but under the new HP policy, the critical fix would only be available to new ProLiant owners and people paying for an extended updates, as HP's ProLiant software warranty is limited to 90 days after purchase.
Another issue in 2011 saw ProLiant servers tossing up data transfer errors when used with certain hard drives. Again, a firmware update was required to fix the critical flaw.
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