Maintenance certificates/licenses - where will this all end?

According to

1240265 - SPAM, SAINT no valid maintenance certificate found

1236587 - JSPM - no valid maintenance certificate found

it´s necessary to install aside from a license an additional certificate from january 1st, 2009 to be able to install patches.

SAP-PM-guys, are you really serious? Why can´t the "normal license" cover that?

ST-A/PI is not installed on our system due to many problems during UC-migrations and upgrades in the past so an automatic distribution is not possible - and works only for ABAP systems.

I really wonder if that is the new strategical alignment of the "Enterprise support" à la "If you want to apply note XYZ you need to first install a valid license for that note..."

(Sorry for cynicism).

Markus