Re: cert discussion

[Marc Mengel <mengel@fsui02.FNAL.GOV>]

I think most of the discussion here has missed what I consider the important
point.  If we (SAGE as a group) do not provide a useful, informative,
certification program, one *will* be provided for us, and it may not be
one that we want.

Already employers are jumping on the "Microsoft Certified Developer" and
"Netware Certified" network administrator bandwagon.  This is because the
majority of folks in the world who need to hire a system administrator have 
*no clue* about system administration, or they would do it themselves.   
Those folks need some sort of mechanism to sort the wheat from the chaff of 
job applicants, and they will grab onto, and hang onto, any such mechanism 
they find like a Titanic survivor hanging onto a life boat.

I suspect this has at least something to do with why many companies pick 
Novell and Microsoft over other solutions -- they come with an external
ruler that *claims* to tell you whether people are qualified to work on the
system you have purchased.  After all, deploying a computer system involves
not just buying the computers, but hiring the people to run them.  If you
as a manager can't figure out how to hire the people to run it, you may as 
well not buy the system...  Microsoft and Novell have come along and 
given those managers an answer -- just look for their certification.

Notice that I am not claiming that these certification programs are 
neccesarily accurate in discerning between "good" and "bad" administrators
or programmers, or that they have any other benefit to society per se;
rather I am claiming that their mere existence changes purchasing and
hiring decisions on an ever increasing scale.  

(Yes, it would be nice if a SAGE certification program was effective at 
such screening.  But if we make it a requirement that it be perfect in
that regard, we will make the problem unsolvable.)

So if you want to know why Microsoft and Novell are beating out your own
Favorite Programming/Networking Solution in the marketplace, certification
is actually one reason.  (I'm sure there are others, but none of them have
been mentioned on this mailing list lately :-> )

But if folks want to have a job administering FreeBSD or Red Hat Linux 
or Plan 9 systems in a couple of years; we should think about starting a
certification program that lets managers know that there is a pool of
people proportedly qualified to install and administer them, and so that
the certificate can be listed as a requirement on the Help Wanted ads.

Enough said.

Marc