I did not notice it myself but over Christmas Oracle made the SOA Suite and the OSB free for developers.

I found out via the January issue of the Oracle SOA Partner Community Newsletter, issued by
Jürgen Kress. You can sign-up for the newsletter here: http://www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa.

You can download most Oracle FMW software for free on the OTN download site. Although you do not have to pay to download the software, it is not free to use. This is governed by the OTN Developer License.

At Open World 2012 Oracle announced the OTN Free Developer License. The license allows one named developer to use the software for free on a single developer desktop computer.

Until now, the only software that was available under this license was the WebLogic Server.

No specific software is mentioned in the OTN Free Developer License. When you download software from OTN you have to agree to a license agreement. For some products, it is the OTN Developer License and for others it is the OTN Free Developer License.

The SOA Suite:

The OSB: