Date: Sun, 07 May 2000 12:15:57 -0500 From: "G. D. Charnay" <gdcharnay@nfinity.com> To: <webmaster@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Fwd: Re: FreeBSD Professional Certification??? Message-ID: <4.3.1.2.20000507121533.00ad6440@nfinity.com>
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Here are some informative comments from an official of The Linux Professional Institute, which I hope can be forwarded to the proper parties in the FreeBSD organization. This is FYI and any use you may care to make of it. Thank you. TS Date: Sun, 07 May 2000 10:59:30 -0500 From: "TOM SIMPSON" <toms@chirock.com> To: <evan@starnix.com> Subject: Re: FreeBSD Professional Certification??? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Disposition: inline Yes. Thanks, Evan. You gave me much more than I expected, but your remarks are just about "right on" as to what I expected they might be on the issues you discuss. Please understand that I have no illusions about any of this. If it ever comes to pass, it will have been a long, hard, and difficult row to hoe for FreeBSD. Thank you again. I will pass your remarks on to the FreeBSD people. TS >>> Evan Leibovitch <evan@starnix.com> 05/06/00 11:34PM >>> On Sat, 6 May 2000, TOM SIMPSON wrote: > I understand that more and more interest is being expressed in a > FreeBSD Professional Certification Program. Well, I am also > interested in such a program. Now, I know there are formidable > problems in developing such a program, but it could be that at least > the superstructure of such a program, for FreeBSD, has already been > developed in an open certification program for LINUX. > So, I suggest anyone interested in the development of FreeBSD > Professional Certification take a look at: > > http://www.lpi.org. > > This is the Linux Professional Institute (from Canada, I believe), and > they will be offering the LPIC at three different levels, two tests per > level, 1 , 2, and 3. Hi there. My name is Evan Leibovitch and I'm one of the co-founders of LPI. It's based in Canada (as a head office) for a number of reasons (there are few jurisdictions in the world that allow a corporation to conduct its board meetings online :-). But it has board members and volunteers worldwide. Basics are covered in a reasonable FAQ at http://www.lpi.org/a-faq.html I'd be glad to answer any other questions about certification in general, the fun and obstacles we had to encounter on our way to making LPI happen, and the possibility of doing something along these lines in the BSD world. One thing to consider first -- this process is *expensive*. Despite heavy participation from volunteers, the cost of developing a program that's challenging and respected rapidly gets into the multi-six-digits. Despite a fairly long list of Linuxland sponsors (which can be seen at http://www.lpi.org/a-sponsors.html), who have contributed up to $50K each at the Platinum level, we're still nowhere near our needs to complete all three levels. LPI's significant volunteer support has helped keep our costs substantially below those incurred by commercial certs (ie, MCSE, CNE, etc) but is still fairly staggering. How much would BSDi be able to kick in? How many others would step forward? This is a real concern to consider before you start. One possible option that might be viable if it clears any political hurdles -- have LPI and the BSD community on LPI-administered, jointly-developed BSD exams. That would be far less expensive to the BSD community that doing the whole program itself. > I predict LPIC will eventually become the CNE of LINUX, since it is > OPEN (like LINUX is supposed to be), and non-proprietary, again, > keeping with the nature of LINUX. That's certainly what we'd like, but it'll take time. Consider that the real "market" for BSD certification is *not* those who are already skilled in it, but newcomers who need to demonstrate their skills with a piece of paper. It's not for everyone, and you can expect to come across a significant "certification is un-necessary" sentiment. It's part of the reason why, Usenix/Sage is only now even doing basic research after a *lot* of years of trying. > One could do worse than to ask the folks at www.lpi.org for some > guidance on this subject. They are really doing it. The FreeBSD > organization could probably do it too, as the concepts behind both > LINUX and FreeBSD UNIX are not all that different, when it comes to an > open operating system, IMHO. The concepts are similar. If you look at the objectives of the two existing exams: http://www.lpi.org/p-obj-101.html http://www.lpi.org/p-obj-102.html A BSD user who's never touched Linux will still recognize most of it. The issue is one of execution and implementation. A cert program is extremely draining of resources, and the dollar stakes get high in a hurry. Consider that the *real* consumers, the target market for certification, is not even the people taking the exams and getting certified. It's the people doing the hiring, who will eventually demand the cert or ignore it. There are some people who get certs for the hell of it, but generally it's a practical issue of career advancement. If someone won't think that a cert is useful and won't get them a (better) job, then they won't bother and the cert will die. That's why we decided that we needed to go a route that isn't 100% "open" in some respects. For instance, LPI exams are delivered by the very commercial, very proprietary VUE organization. While open alternatives were considered (and may be pursued in the future), the target audience simply wouldn't respect a cert that wasn;t achieved through a respected proctoring network. Hope this helps. Feel free to re-distribute. > P.S. Here are the contact data for The Linux Professional Institute: > > The Linux Professional Institute > 20 Abelard Avenue > Brampton, Ontario L6Y 2K8 > Canada > > Phone: +1 905 452 0926 > Fax: +1 905 452 9754 > > Email: info@lpi.org FYI, the address has recently been changed: 78 Leander Street Brampton, Ontario Canada L6S 3M7 Phone/fax: 905 874 4822 - Evan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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