Re: certification

[Stephen Potter <spp@psasolar.psa.pencom.com>]

Lightning flashed, thunder crashed and paw@northstar.dartmouth.edu whispered:
| I don't think anyone's suggesting it be mandatory.  This whole tempest was
| apparently provoked in response to Greg Rose's offer to write a PGP Merit
| Badge.  The Merit Badge idea has _always_ been to construct a set of
| "learning tools" so folks could acquire new skills or verify that their
| skills were extant.  It's not a mandatory program; no one's suggesting that
| everyone need have the same set of "badges".

I guess the main point that I (and a few others) are trying to make is to
keep the number of available badges down to a reasonable level.  Keep it
down to skills that are particularly needed for SAs (almost mandatory).

My particular "tirade" was because of the example job posting which got
quite specific as to the badges wanted, including badges for PGP and SSH.
All the most SAs are ever going to need to know about either of those is
how to install it (read the INSTALL, it is pretty simple) and how to use
it (again, read the README).  There is no reason for a merit badge of this
kind, and I'd hate to see someone not be able to get a job because of not
having a merit badge for such skills.

-spp