Re: Solaris experts wanted for SAGE project

[Jim Dennis <jimd@starshine.org>]

> Folks -
 
> SAGE has been approached by a company that makes employment tests
> (skills tests that hiring departments can give to applicants) for
> help in finding authors and reviewers.  At the moment, they're
> looking for someone to author a Solaris sysadmin test (or rather,
> to write good Solaris questions; they worry about the actual
> "constructing the test" parts).  The job does pay, and there are
> contracts to sign.
 
> SAGE is contemplating a "branding" program for such applicant
> skill assesments (a seal of approval, really - saying that this
> particular test does adequately assess what it claims to assess).
> The branding decision (and creating of a Seal program) is still
> ahead of us; the newly elected Board will need to make the final
> decision.  Right now, we're trying to help by providing candidate
> authors.

	This will be an interesting program.  However,  I'd
	like to make sure that it avoids any appearance of
	impropriety by spelling out the financial implications
	of getting such a seal.

	In particular I'd hate to see small community college
	and "open source" assessment efforts closed out of this
	process due to licensing fees (for the SAGE seal) while
	I'd like to see SAGE/USENIX accrue some revenue from the
	process.
 
> If you're interested (either in authoring or potentially being a
> reviewer for the test, once it's written), please let me know ASAP
> and I'll fill in the details.

	I'd like to be a reviewer.  I'd be happy to pose questions
	and suggest possible answers --- but I don't consider myself
	to be a Solaris expert (particularly with newer versions
	of Solaris ---- 2.6 and version 7).


	(Is it just me or does referring to "version 7" sound 
	incredibly "retro" in relation to modern versions of
	Unix)

	Heather does have somewhat more experience with recent
	versions of Solaris --- though she doesn't like it as 
	much as FreeBSD or Linux.  Maybe she'll agree to
	participate.
 
> Pat Wilson
> paw@dartmouth.edu || paw@usenix.org

--
Jim Dennis  (800) 938-4078		consulting@starshine.org
Proprietor, Starshine Technical Services:  http://www.starshine.org