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

[twig les]

I think a nice website to have would be one devoted to using
FreeBSD as a drop-in replacement for Solaris, i.e. in a
corporate environment.  Speaking of PR certifications, I'm busy
for the next month renewing my CISSP but after that I will look
at registering a domain like "CorporateBSD.com" or something. 
Since I'm a lousy developer, this will alleviate my guilt for
not contributing code.  The basic idea is to either host or link
to tons of how-tos that address corporate concerns like patch
roll-outs and hot-spares.  

--- Robert Watson <rwatson at freebsd.org> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 14 Aug 2003, twig les wrote:
> 
> > I am CC'ing -advocacy on this so we can officially move this
> thread over
> > (bc getting chastised hurts my inner-child).  Please don't
> CC -security
> > anymore, although I am in no position whatsoever to enforce
> this
> > request.  Now, to the topic... 
> 
> 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.
> 
> > A large company that has a roll-out hardware/software
> package.  This
> > includes support.  I *know* that it is easy to patch/make
> world, but the
> > number of "computer engineers" that have never heard of SSH
> is
> > astounding.  Management needs a 3rd-party to bitch about and
> know will
> > still be around in 5 years. 
> > 
> > A console port on the hardware platform.  Have you ever
> tried sending
> > management to the pcweasel web site? 
> > 
> > As silly as it sounds (and I understand how silly it
> sounds), a
> > certification like the Red Hack one would help.  I apologize
> profusely
> > for saying that. 
> > 
> > I'm sure I'm missing a lot but if we want a corporate
> sponsor like my
> > massive mother company (which rhymes with AT&C) then it
> seems like we
> > need different medium companies pushing FreeBSD instead of
> redhat as a
> > packaged solution. 
> 
> 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 :-).
> 
> 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.
> 
> Robert N M Watson             FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD
> Projects
> robert at fledge.watson.org      Network Associates Laboratories
> 
> 


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Emo is what happens when the glee club goes punk.       
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