Oracle home question

I have a quick question:

Does the Oracle Home on the server(/u01/app/oracle/product/8.1.7)
ever get updated during the normal day to day operations of the Database?

Or it only gets updated when a patch, etc is explicitly installed
into that home?

Personally, I think the Oracle Home does not get updated during the
normal day to day operations of the Database but I might be wrong?

Thanks,
Learn

You are right. You can check nad confirm with time stamps of the directories and folders as longs as time stamps shows your installed/patch application date, what you think is right.

$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/audit will hold any audit files (can be many per day if set)
$ORACLE_HOME/dbs - any sp or init.ora file changes
$ORACLE_HOME/dbs/lk files are updated at instance startup time