BSD Certification ? Why not?

[Nikolas Britton]

pablo.delgado at lsi.mine.nu wrote:

>Hello everyone,
>
>I usually never post anything, mainly just listen and learn. But just recently I
>was discussing with a friend on ways to help the FreeBSD project grow. And after
>looking at different aspects of things I came across a simple idea. I hope that
>everyone can comment and share there opinions and remember this is just an idea
>which I am hoping would help out the BSD community. And if the idea is already
>implemented then please simply disregard this message.
>
>Now, lets gets started. I spend a lot of time advocating FreeBSD to the
>corporate community, because they are a large source for funding and popularity.
>After careful analysis of every meeting with companies I have held, regarding
>the possibility of using FBSD in there networks, I noticed a pattern. Many
>companies fear the adoption of or implementation of an open source solution
>because (1) the fear that there is little to no support for the product, (2) the
>project may end leaving them with outdated piece of software and (3) there is no
>way to determine if the personnel they hired has the required knowledge to
>manage or support the application.
>
>The solution to the first problem exists (in my opinion) through the extensive
>amount of documentation that is available thanks to the people of the
>DOCUMENTATION PROJECT, and the mailing lists. I simply make businesses aware of
>the effort and resources. The second problem really has no solution; I just
>remind them that even a commercially supported application can die, if the
>company dies. Now the third problem is were I thought the community can develop
>further.
>
>Why not create a FreeBSD Certification Program. The community can form an non
>profit or profit organization (which ever suites best) and team (elected by the
>FreeBSD Foundation or the FreeBSD community, which ever works best) to design,
>develop and manage a certification program that will teach and test essential
>skills and knowledge needed to manage, support or develop the FreeBSD environment. 
>  
>
Have a look at SAGE Certification: http://www.sage.org/cert/ Thats 
problely the best you'll find for essential *nix administration 
test/cert, heck it's the only one I know of.

>Further more, we could invite the other BSDs to participate in the institute
>having a representative from each participating project to form the board,
>creating a larger organization (UnitedBSD Professional Institute, for example)
>in an effort to strengthen our relationships within the BSD world and push
>forward the awareness and availability of the excellent technology developed.
>Each project can develop a certification track that is specific to there
>operating system, and all projects involved will work to develop the intro
>courses that have general UNIX information or information that applies to all
>systems.
>
>NOTE: The FreeBSD community together should decide weather they will collaborate
>with other BSD projects with regards to the certification institute. Again I am
>just throwing ideas.
>  
>
Sounds like a great idea, we'll call it UBSDi... I heard they where 
going to do something like that after the website redesign.

>The Institute will also have liaisons, that will work with businesses that wish
>to hire FreeBSD or *BSD certified professionals or train there employees to
>support the new or existing FreeBSD or *BSD environment. It can also have a
>support line for companies, admins or users that wish to email or call for
>emergency support (which is one of the things they fear not having the most).
>And finally, there can be a PR team dedicated to pushing FreeBSD awareness to
>the world.
>
>I believe that this will allow the FreeBSD or *BSD community to grow because (1)
>the money earned from the support, courses and certifications taken will serve
>as additional funding for the project, (2) give companies a way to determine if
>an individual has the skill require to maintain there BSD environment, and (3)
>make the world even more aware of us!
>
>Well that concludes my idea. Hope to hear everyone’s comments, make them nice
>please, and inputs or modifications.
>
>Regards,
>Pablo Delgado
>  
>
Good idea's but I think your talking to the wind. If they fight us tooth 
and nail for suggesting a simple website redesign then I'd hate to 
imagine what they'd think of this.

If you want certifications then have them look for other ones from 
RedHat, IBM, HP, Sun's programs etc....
AIX, *BSD, Tru64, Solaris, HP-UX, IRIX, Linux, SCO, etc. are all UNIX or 
"UNIX Like" and this is why there collectively group as *nix and why if 
you know one then you know the other one (or can "quickly" get up to 
speed). If you'd want to break them down into groups, then I think it 
would look something like this: SysV UNIX, BSD UNIX, and Linux. and 
anyone who knows old school Solaris will also know BSD UNIX.

One thing I thought would be cool (but very expensive) would be to get 
FreeBSD UNIX certified by the open group. then we could use the UNIX 
trademark on everything and brag about it when your in the board 
meetings and such.

Anyways, have a good day....