Evan Leibovitch wrote:
christiaan wrote:
Many lessons can be drawn from the LPI but is developing the business
plan of BSD certifcation along similar lines as the LPI really
feasible for the BSD?
Very good question, and I agree that this kind of thing needs a higher
priority than codes of ethics. In fact, I think that the outline in
the roadmap that indicates that the business plan be done in parallel
with the certification plan is a mistake. IMO at least some of the biz
plan needs to be done before the cert plan is started because (like it
or not) the business models chosen *will* affect the cert plan.
FWIW, we didn't know when we started LPI that it would have any
commercial demand. It was started on mutual agreement that something
was a Really Good Idea and could at leasts sustain itself IFF there
was significant community (read: volunteer or cheaper than market
rates) support.
There was also a financial incentive for many of the early sponsors
that wasn't sheer philanthropy. I recall that just about every Unix
vendor did their own expensive and money-losing exams. To this day
there is no Unix certification but there is one for Solaris, one for
AIX, one for HP-UX, one for OpenServer, etc. Their individual numbers
have never themselves justified the cost but they exist because:
1) They help to sell training (which *is* a big moneymaker)
2) They add credibility and stability to the products
It is notable that HP and IBM, two big Unix players, decided to join
SuSE and Caldera in supporting LPI when making their corporate
commitments to Linux in the late 90s (rather than making their own
Linux certifications). It was FAR cheaper for them to join the LPI
community than to each repeat the Unix mistake in rolling their own
certs (though they could have easily done that). Now both HP and IBM
(as well as many others) do well with their own LPI-targeted training
initiatives. Having said that, not everyone in Linux space believes in
the community model (ie., Red Hat).
Obviously at least some of the LPI model can't apply to the BSD
effort. It would be nice if companies like Apple or others who make
money from use of BSD could see the corporate advantage of supporting
this cert effort for the same reasons that IBM and HP did with LPI.
IMO, if Apple wants to legitimately get into server space or crack the
business market, it too will need a training/certification strategy.
- Evan
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Given Evans experience, how many corporate sponsors are out there for
BSD certification? Maybe a fundamental question to the business model
is rather, what is a 'sponsor' ? Is a sponsor a corporate or the student
at college or the sysadmin or the novice at home?
Chris
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