On Mon, 3 Jan 2011, Aaron McCaleb 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.
Part of what is needed is the education of what our jobs are. This includes things like the fact that it's pretty close to impossible to protect a system from the people who admin it, it's also impossible for us to do things like maintain a mail system without having the capability to look at other people's mail. In terms of public policy, watching out for things that would make admins personally liable for actions taken from their servers would be a good thing. David Lang _______________________________________________ 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/
