In August, our representative with the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) [1], Christoph Lameter [2], attended a LPI meeting held at the LWE in San Francisco. Additionally, I have had very fruitful discussions with Evan Leibovitch, the president of LPI, since July. I'd like to give a brief overview of what is going on.
First of all, a short introduction of the Linux Professional Institute (LPI). Quoting from their web site, LPI serves "in the interest of increasing and supporting professional use of [free] software throughout [the] world." Specifically, they have developed several Linux certifications which are very popular and recognized. Christoph Lameter told me that more than 30,000 people have taken LPI exams so far. Evan Leibovitch added that in their 101 exam, "LPI gives people the choice between being tested in either 'rpm' or 'dpkg' installation systems." Since they started doing this, about 5% of people taking LPI exams have opted for the 'dpkg' questions. This percentage varies quite a bit, though. For instance, it was closer to 25% in a recent exam lab LPI held in Sydney. LPI is currently developing level III exams which will also include system security. The level III exams are developed on the exam-devel mailing list at lpi.org and Debian developers interested in participating in these discussions, to help shape these exams, are welcome to subscribe to this list [3]. Furthermore, LPI is working on the development of a "Desktop Certification". The certification will focus on the use of office applications under Linux. Basics such as printing, word processing, spreadsheets, as well as many other tasks, will be covered. Discussions on how to go about to developing this certification are in the initial stages. Debian desktop people interested in this helping develop this certification are encouraged to get in contact with me. Finally, LPI will be present at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) [4, 5] which will take place in Geneva in December. WSIS is a massive international conference which brings together representatives from every country and thousands of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in order to encourage the adoption of consistent, sustainable IT policies that protect rights and encourage commerce while encouraging high standards and ethics. LPI will be handing out Linux CDs at this conference, and I have promised him that Debian will supply an ISO image. The Debian Non-Profit sub-project [6] is working on a bootable live CD based on Morphix and I think this would be ideally suited for WSIS. Again, if you are interested in helping out, get in contact with me. I'm delighted to see more cooperation between Debian and LPI, and I will definitely stay in contact with Evan and also put him in contact with more Debian people. [1] http://www.lpi.org/ [2] http://www.debian.org/misc/memberships [3] http://list.lpi.org/mailman/listinfo/lpi-examdev [4] http://www.itu.int/wsis/ [5] http://www.geneva2003.org/wsis/indexb01.htm [6] http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-nonprofit/ -- Martin Michlmayr [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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