Certification (was RE: realpath(3) et al) - jumping to -advocacy

[Devon H. O'Dell]

> I certainly didn't mean to chastise :-).  I was just saying that
> certifications are odd things -- they have value in strange ways.  My main
> concern was that people seemed to think it had value from a practical
> security implementation perspective -- I'm not sure that it does.  It's
> value is entirely in market, PR, et al, and I agree that there is
> substantial value to be had there, if approached the right way.

Since I brought up the subject, I'd like to clarify that I wasn't promoting
the idea from a security perspective; I'm sorry that I posted it there
instead of here, in the first place. I concur that its value is in the
fields you specify and that it must be approached in said right way (which
is why I'm also hesitating with going ahead and donating for this cause). I
think the first step is figuring out how we're going to go at this; the next
step is making it publicly known and raking in the dough to make it happen
;)

> I agree with these conclusions entirely.  RedHat plays a valuable role in
> the Linux world in a variety of ways, and one of the most important is to
> provide the kind of support and legitimacy presence that many large
> companies are looking for.  Having one for the FreeBSD world would
> certainly provide a lot of swing for FreeBSD.  It would also change the
> dynamic of the FreeBSD Project substantially, I expect, but it would be
> hard to predict too much how.  I think that many people hoped that BSDi
> could play this role for FreeBSD, but obviously that didn't work out :-).

RedHat is pretty much Linux' college daddy at this point (discounting SuSE)
in that it spends tons of money with the R&D of Linux. There's obviously not
this financial "father" of FreeBSD at this point, but if we work hard
enough, I think we can get a bunch of kids to give us their "lunch money"
(so to speak).

 
> So, if you know of a small company that wants to get bigger, and wants to
> give a spin at promoting FreeBSD in this manner (and making money off it
> in a sustainable way), I would encourage you to encourage them.  I'm sure
> there are a fair number of FreeBSD developers who would like to work for
> such a company, if they thought it was viable.

I would certainly love to do this. Let me know when this company starts (or
when you're starting one). I don't have the financial or business capacity
to start it.

--Devon