Patent ID: 7506244

Claim:
A method comprising: accessing publishing-based user information, associated with a publisher, in a memory device, where the publisher is a user of a electronic publishing system to publish software images for prospective software image customers; determining the publisher is authenticated and authorized to perform publishing-related activities according to the publishing-based user information, where publishing-related activities enable the publisher to electronically publish one or more software images and to determine whether to provide one or more prospective software image customers access to the published software images associated with the publisher; generating metadata for the software image including software image entitlement information associated with prospective software image customer, where the software image entitlement information to indicate any restrictions on the prospective software image customer from accessing published software images by the publisher; publishing said software image and the metadata when the publisher is authenticated and authorized to perform publishing-related activities, where access to the published software image is dictated by the software image entitlement information; generating patch information associated with at least one software patch to fix a problem corresponding to the published software image, where the patch information is included with the metadata for the software image; and publishing the software patch corresponding to the published software image when the publisher is authenticated and authorized to perform publishing-related activities, where the patch information in the metadata of the published software image associates the software patch with the corresponding software image.