Re: cert discussion

[zwicky <zwicky@pterodactyl.neu.sgi.com>]

[It's probably worthwhile pointing out that I am, at best,
lukewarm about certification. What I'm in favor of is productive
discussion.]

 >-- Certification is actively harmful to the membership.  I believe it
 >   will reduce salaries and require members to pay repeatedly for expensive
 >   certification exams and training.  I believe it will be used enforce a 
 >   rigid status quo in a dynamic industry and will be descriminatory to
 >   "non-traditional" administrators.

OK, I understand the issue about expensive certification exams and 
training -- the cheapest possible exams are going to be relatively
expensive. I'm not sure why you think it will reduce salaries; 
the Microsoft/Netware crowd seems to believe it increases salaries.
Are there any relevant facts? My intuition is that it increases low-end
salaries and does nothing to high-end salaries, because high-end
salaries are driven by pure desperation. But my intuition vs. your
intuition is not a fruitful argument. 

I'm also not sure how a certification program *could* either enforce
a rigid status quo, *or* discrimate against non-traditional administrators.
It's certainly less effective at these and cheaper than an education
program. It is certainly discriminatory against people who don't test well,
but that can be dealt with. (For instance, testing programs routinely
provide adaptations for people with learning disabilities; it's also
possible to provide an alternate non-test certification route.)

I know several people who're "non-traditional" if that means
"non-degreed"; one of them would be actively aided by a certificate
program, since he could easily get one and it would distract employers
from his lack of degree. The other probably wouldn't get a certificate --
although he could ask for and receive adaptations, it's an incredible
nuisance to do so, and the test is inherently much harder for him
than for most of the rest of us. And he has no great reason to care;
employers are so blinded by his accomplishments that relatively few
of them even notice he's missing a degree.

 >-- It is morally wrong because SAGE is not representative of the global
 >   administration community or even the global Unix administration 
 >   community.  

I really don't see where this matters. A SAGE system administration
certificate is a SAGE system administration certificate, not a decree
of absolute truth. This is one area where employers have a pretty good
grasp on reality; when they look at a certificate, they pay attention
to the certificate-granting organization.

There are really two types of certificate-granting organizations: ones
that get to define their field, and ones that are merely asserting an
opinion. Microsoft's certificates, or certificates issued by the state,
have a special mystic significance, since they're issued by an organization
that has the power to simply decree what is required to have the title
that's on the certificate. But thousands of other organizations offer
certificates that are based solely on their opinion; those certificates
have a weight based on the reputation of the organization. If SAGE
doesn't represent its community, that makes its certificates worthless
pieces of paper, but I don't think it makes the enterprise immoral. 

 >   Furthermore, I believe the Board is pursuing certification
 >   without a clear mandate from the membership.

This I basically agree with; that is, I think clear mandates from
the membership are rarer than perfectly sunny days in Seattle, but
that this is an issue where things are much worse than unclear. 
I would like it clarified ASAP, because we've been going through this
every 3 months for SAGE's entire history. It's time to either do it,
or kill it. Just kinda not doing it is not a useful option. 

 >Let me further state that just because employers might be clamoring for
 >some sort of ranking system for System Administration candidates, and even
 >if Sun, Microsoft, and every other vendor in the world panders to this sort
 >of inane credentialism, there is no reason in the world why SAGE should
 >pursue such a course.

Amen, brother! But... I think you're partly fighting a straw man here.
Yeah, some of the reason people want to do this boils down to "Everybody
else is, why can't I?" and that's an argument beneath contempt. But
"employers are clamoring" really is "SAGE members are clamoring", which
is a good argument. And "everybody else is doing it really badly, which
annoys me, and I can do it right and make the world a better place" is
an argument which might be factually incorrect, but isn't ridiculous.

 >Hal Pomeranz, Principal        Deer Run Associates        hal@deer-run.com
 >      Network Connectivity and Security, Systems Management, Training