The sysadmin field is relatively new and the fixed roles we see in medicine (oncologist, GP, surgeon) probably haven't been fully defined in our field yet. A professional GP is not a professional neurologist, so we need both horizontal (level) and vertical (specialty) distinctions. When someone's life or a large sum of money is at stake, I'd say you want more than just a professional.
Hans On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 2:13 AM, David Lang <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, 16 Sep 2014, Paul Heinlein wrote: > > On Tue, 16 Sep 2014, David Lang wrote: >> >> I agree, but I was more asking for thoughts on if this was a good >>> defintiion of "Professional" and if this definition would work any better >>> than the previous definitions we've tries to use for the term >>> "professional" and the follow-up discussions on licensing/certification >>> efforts. >>> >> >> Ah. I apologize for responding to the wrong question. >> >> I think this definition is useful, because it is the first one that I've >>> seen that is able to draw a line between the Sysadmin who is running their >>> personal site or a local club/church site (something that I strongly >>> believe should NOT be regulated/licensed) and someone running a bank (where >>> they may have people working there who aren't licensed, but it would be >>> reaonsble to say that the person in charge if not most of the senior people >>> should be) >>> >> >> I think I understand your desire to provide solid guidance as to when an >> "amateur" can be given charge of a computing environment and when it should >> be run only be a "professional." >> >> In the examples you've provided, however, it seems to me that you're >> talking much more about the job than the person. A hospital job might >> require HIPAA competencies, a retailer PCI competencies, a major ISP >> Cisco/Juniper/BGP competencies, and the NSA a willingness to follow the >> rules and keep your mouth shut. >> >> I'm not sure that a single term like "professional" really captures all >> that -- mostly because it gives the sense that a computer professional at, >> say, a Kaiser Hospital would also accepted as a computer professional at >> Comcast. >> >> In other words, any mention of "professional" would be immediately be >> followed by the question, "professional what?" Certainly not "professional >> sysadmin," which is way too broad for any reasonable licensing standards. >> >> None of this is meant to undermine your point that some computing jobs >> intersect with basic human well-being; it's just that I cannot currently >> fathom any single term to describe the situation. >> > > Medicine, Engineering, and Law all have lots of specialties as well, but > that doesn't mean that the term "Doctor", "Engineer", and "Lawyer" don't > have significant meaning. > > I have been very opposed to anything like mandatory licensing in part > because of the slippery slope down to things that obviously shouldn't > require certification/licenseing and in part due to the barrier to entry > that would have kept out a large percentage of the current people in the > field. > > This is the first definition that I've seen that had any chance of solving > the first problem. > > While HIPPA or PCI are clear triggers that can point at the need to have a > Professional Sysadmin in charge, defining the terms this way makes it easy > to say that the local Deli probably doesn't need a professional running > their computers, but that the local Engineering firm that would go out of > business if they lost their data does. > > This is going back to the question of what is the impact of things being > wrong, and what is the probability that the person hiring them could tell > that they are wrong. > > > David Lang > _______________________________________________ > Tech mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech > This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators > http://lopsa.org/ >
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