We don ' t have to do animal sacrifices anymore . <| sep |> My RES preview was cut off , I didn ' t see the messages . at first I was trying to figure out if this was a face swap . <| sep |> They ' re still on an HTTP and FTP server , but you need a paid account to access it . That ' s how it is with nearly all of the enterprise gear I ' ve come in contact with . You have to sign into the oracle customer portal or whatever it ' s called , and then all the updates and firmware is sitting there , even for the older stuff . It ' s not destroyed , just annoyingly locked . Thing is , as you said it ' s effectively no cost to host the files . What does cost companies a fortune though is having to pay staff to answer the phone and explain to upset customers that without a contract they can ' t help you now you ' ve bricked your machine with the wrong firmware , or the latest bios update didn ' t solve your issue . By locking down the firmware and such , so not just everyone has access , you cut down your support team ' s wasted time and money dealing with people who need help with legacy gear , and many without any form of contract . No one wants to pay staff to talk to customers who didn ' t even earn you any money , and instead eBayed your products 10 years down the line . Putting old stuff under lock and key , and allowing hardware to die early , saves companies millions a year in dealing with people still trying to use it or repurpose it well after you ' ve made your money from it . It ' s not great for people like us , but it saves them a lot of money and generally doesn ' t affect big businesses their target audience .