Bryan J. Smith wrote:

> They are honoring it by your certification being perpetual.
> But they now have an "ACTIVE/INACTIVE" status.

The LPI promised Alan to keep his certificate ACTIVE for 10 years, and they 
have now unilaterally reduced that to 5. They promised to keep mine ACTIVE 
forever (i.e., when I got it the ACTIVE/INACTIVE issue didn't even exist), 
and have unilaterally reduced that to 5 years, too. I don't call 
this »honouring an agreement« even if you do.

By now I have written or co-written more than 1500 pages of preparation 
materials on LPIC-1 and LPIC-2 as well as a 450-page book on LPIC-1, so I 
don't really mind re-sitting the exam. My employer is going to pick up the 
bill so I don't mind that either. What I do mind is constantly having to 
justify and defend the most recent batch of weasel-wording from Canada to the 
local alumni and prospective candidates with little or no advance warning.

We're basically LPI's ground crew here (with the executive presumably 
hob-nobbing with industry CEOs somewhere in the blue yonder), and if 
candidates don't like what we have to tell them then they won't bother about 
the certificate. This is especially true if they've read in a book that the 
certificate is valid for 10 years (which used to be a major advantage 
compared to the »industry« certificates) and now we have to say »no, sorry, 
that's been changed to 5, and anyway LPI says you should redo the exams every 
two years«. Our LPIC-1 book was re-issued three months ago, and in our 
discussion of LPI formalities we have been naïve enough to buy into the »10 
years because of NOCA« explanation, which at the time was touted as 
essentially having been hand-carried off Mount Sinai on stone tablets, so 
this is what candidates are going to see for the next two years or so, and 
what we are going to have to put right. These constant policy tweaks come 
across to the punters as LPI not really knowing what they want, which in turn 
puts us at a disadvantage when we're trying to sell LPI as the next best 
thing to sliced bread (which, as *we* know, in many ways it is).

Anyway, it's great to be able to extol the prospective LPIC-3 set of exams for 
a change, even if most people we get to see struggle with LPIC-1 already, but 
I'm wary of the next ton of bricks that is going to land on us in due course 
if things stay the way they are.

Anselm

(This is my personal opinion and not that of Linup Front GmbH.)
-- 
Anselm Lingnau ... Linup Front GmbH ... Linux-, Open-Source- & Netz-Schulungen
Linup Front GmbH, Postfach 100121, 64201 Darmstadt, Germany
[EMAIL PROTECTED], +49(0)6151-9067-103, Fax -299, www.linupfront.de
_______________________________________________
lpi-discuss mailing list
[email protected]
http://list.lpi.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lpi-discuss

Reply via email to