damn list anomaly - sorry for dupe Aaron On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 9:28 AM, Aaron McCaleb <[email protected]> wrote: > In a prior discussion on possibly publishing a "LOPSA sanctioned" > opinion with respect to the WikiLeaks scandal, the following quote > from https://lopsa.org/AboutLOPSA was brought up: > > "The second benefit of joining LOPSA is to advance the profession as a > whole. LOPSA aims to bring a voice to system administrators to society > beyond. We want to educate the public, influence policy both corporate > and legislative, and ensure that our voice is heard. We will reach > this goal with outreach, research into sysadmin issues, and active > efforts to expose the media and public to our viewpoints." > > This implies, in my opinion, that there might have been a desire for > LOPSA to be an activist organization..._beyond_ providing education > and/or a common body of knowledge. > > I thought, this being a new year, it might be a good time to start > analyzing this goal to hopefully give it direction. To that end, I > think it's best to define the "problem", before considering what > "solution" LOPSA might provide. > > So I think it would be appropriate to start with a question: > > ********** > Particularly with respect to corporate and public policy, in what way > is the system administration profession _not_ being advanced at this > time? (Note: "My boss/family/neighbors/Representative/priest doesn't > understand my job," probably isn't a good answer. First of all, > that's just life. Second, that is more of an educational issue, not a > public policy issue.) > ********** > > And I ask this question because, in all honesty, the answer is not > clear to me. If I were asked that question, the only answer I would > be likely to muster on short notice would be, "My boss doesn't > understand my job." And as I noted, I don't think that is a good > answer. It certainly doesn't help determine a concise, actionable > issue for any sort of public policy activism. > > Regards, > --Aaron McCaleb > _______________________________________________
Aaron, I am interested and willing to contribute, but it is important to recognize ruff justice in the world when it occurs, and if my Federal Government had made even the slightest effort, Wikileaks would be in the press on issues other than these. Exposing the duplicity of Diplomats is great sport and has always been far to easy. And to anyone that claims the exposure puts people at risk, I would ask them to account for those put at risk by the normal functions of Foggy Bottom. but this is OT - fun, but OT A list of bad or badly operated system would be a good start - by bad, I mean unethical. by badly, I mean systems with obvious functional failings given their position in society.* A LOPSA only collection of name+shame systems** would be a good step forward in understanding the ethics of systems. As Justice Stewart said in Jacobellis v. Ohio - "I know it when I see it." which, as we all know, is the basis for building a collection. Lets do that first and begin to state why certain systems are bad, or badly done. eventually, we can move on to a controlled vocabulary or ontology of the unethical, but lets just make a list for now. Ed - Happy New Year to All *Like an ACL system that can't handle removable media - or volume discounts. **These should be systems in the public so that all LOPSA members can observe them independently. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
