On Tue, 7 Sep 1999, Dan York spewed into the bitstream:
> > I don't think I misread it. I have certifications for IRIX administration and
> > other "UNIX" systems and they do not "expire" , "recommend recertification" or
> > any other words you wish to use. If you want this to be a "trade" go ahead and
> > treat it as such, I will not be involved and I think many more will not, but if
> > you want to treat it as a profession then once an individual has the
> > certification that's it. I don't think you want a program like CPR do you? That
> > requires recertification to prove competence. Is that what you are after with
> > this certification? Or are you demonstrating that an individual has mastered a
> > subject? Those are both two very different certification approaches, what are
> > you after? You can make the testing as tough as you want, I have no problem
> > with that, but requiring recertification every two years or so just cheapens the
> > whole process.
> >
> > Enough said, you have my 2 cents, I will not bother to bring it up again. I'll
> > just wait and see what happens....
> I have been following this from the begining but haven't said much, however it
> looks like it is nearing the end of the process so I guess it is time to speak.
>
> I agree 100% with Ken Lund. If this is a license, I want no part of it. If it
> is a certification, then I will get my certification and be on my way.
Okay.... I've been silent for the vast majority of this debate as well as the
direction it's gone seemed to make sense to me... 1st... let me ask Tom and Ken
a question...
Who is certification for? You or your prospective employers?
Much of what you've said indicates to me that you're only looking at it from
"your" point of view... switch views for a minute and be a technical hiring
manager or Chief Information Management Officer at a major corporation. Pretend
that LPI has been providing cert's since kernel release 1.0x and tell me that
you wouldn't care if some prospective employee showed up and said that because
he's certed from back then that he is qualified to work on your brand new
$30,000, 4 way SMP, mission-critical Xeon system with 100GB of RAID and kernel
2.2.13#pre4. How do you, as that hiring manager, "know" that he can handle the
thing without breaking it? You don't because individual skill and expertise
varies but that cert does give you at least some insight into what the
individual knows.
That's the issue here... anything else and the cert will prove to be just about
as useful as your dime a dozen MCP! If we did not adopt some kind of "update"
requirement we have not filled the existing void that we're trying to fill.
Plz note that this whole point I've made is dis-tasteful to me because in my
heart I agree that a real Linux pro would keep up on his own but... on the flip
side of that coin, I've worked with some slugs who just won't make the effort to
keep up! Also... this completely leaves aside the psychometric validity issues
raised by our resident psychometricians, Scott Murray and Alan Mead and we have
to pay very close attention to what those guys say or we invalidate the entire
process!
I believe that Linux will always have that "wild/homegrown" taste to it (at
least I hope it does) but we have to play ball with the corporate world to make
this work and they want "proof/guarantees" of technical expertise. Now... if you
believe I don't understand the difference between experienced personnel, and a
newly certed Linux newbie guess again *please*, because I do but that's our
problem now with taking the "next step" and pushing Linux into the main-stream.
Those aforementioned hiring managers want this and we've got to give it to them
or we're wasting our time. Is it a PITA for those of us who already know what
we're doing? Yes. Do we have to live with it anyway? Yes.
--
Chuck Mead, CTO, MoonGroup Consulting, Inc. <http://moongroup.com>
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