Hello all! :-) Let's start with a brief intro: My name is Bryan Maynard and I am a relative n00b to FreeBSD. I've been using it now for about a year and love it. I've been picking up as much info as I can as I go. I am also the owner of a project currently hosted at java.net called thereallm. I really like FreeBSD a lot and would love to see a structured training and certification program emerge that both teaches people the ins and outs of all the BSDs and then certifies their knowledge. My understanding (I just signed up for this list last night :-) ) is that bsdcertification will be doing something like this. I am sorry if I make comments, ask questions, or give ideas that have already been asked/mentioned.
I ahve been tracking several FreeBSD mailing lists for a while now (advocacy, ACPI, Bluetooth, Chat, Firewire, Hackers, Java, KDE, Mobile, Questions, UBS, and X11) and have seen questions fall into several general catagories: how to tune/customize performance, device configuration/compatability, tool usage, and how things "fit together". One of my ideas is to split certification into several complementary catagories that map somewhat to the groups of questions people ask. A "trimmer". This person would be trained to pull maximum performance from a system. A "device orchastrator". This person would know what devices work best together and why. A "gaurd dog". Suprisingly few questions are asked about security, but we all know it's importance. There are, obviously, other catagories for certification - I just wanted to pose the idea of re-thinking what kinds of certifications are given out. IMO, greatest strenths of FreeBSD are it's security, modularity, speed, and stability. If we train people around these core benefits then the people sell the OS and the OS sells the people. We could certify people in a way that would create "swat teams" that could come in and create efficient and customized systems for clients that could be easily re-configured later. To my knowledge, this does not currently exist. In addition to the certification we are discussing here, I think it would be extremely beneficial to gather as much info about the BSDs as possible in one place - or a small number of closely related places. These repositories could double as study sources/reference material. Again, if I am retreading anything I am sorry. I am very excited about BSD certifications. I would like to get certified myself assoon as I can :-) . Thank you for your time. Bryan -- Open Source: by the people, for the people. _______________________________________________ BSDCert mailing list [email protected] http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/bsdcert
