[ale] Re: Certification

[Dan Newcombe]

> Christopher Fowler wrote:
> > I know this may be crazy, but has anybody thought of any kind
> > of certification program for linux?

After reading Chris's post about meaning "being certified that one 
knows Linux".  I guess you mean something along the lines of the CNE 
for Novell.  Personally I think the CNE is bogus, as I've known a few 
who were still not sure about what they are doing.  I think all the CNE 
certifies is that you've given Novell $4000 or whatever it costs.
 
If this is ever done for Linux, it would be nice to have it at an 
affordable price - this way it is not limited to just those with big 
wallets or good jobs.  The money should just pay the overhead of 
administering the test and associated costs (do it over the web cheap!)

Then again, some of the people I graduated with that have a piece of 
paper I would never hire.

> One other tidbit of info, one of the companies that participated in
> getting their distribution of Linux certified, Lasermoon, UK has been
> purchased by Caldera along with The Linux Support Team from Germany.
> I don't know if this sort of company gobbling is good or bad in the
> long run for the future of Linux as we know it today.

This has it's goods and bads.  On the bad side, it cuts down on the 
variety of Linux availiable.  The possible problem is if Caldera 
gobbled up all sorts of companies (competition) and then somehow made 
it hard to get any commercial apps to work on anything but the Caldera 
distribution, that would be bad.  (How they would do that???)

On the good side, it cuts down on the variety of Linux availiable.  
I'll say straight out that I like Caldera.  I'm not a customer, don't 
plan on buying it, but like what they are doing.  One way of looking at 
this is they now have a UK and German distributor.  If Caldera starts 
becoming the dominant Linux distribution (sold), then companies would 
see that x% of the Unix market is taken up by Caldera, not by 200 
different Linux distributions.  This gives them a stable (and 
marketable) platform to aim their development at.  Also, with this 
branching out, it also gives them international ways of getting their 
product out there.

The trick for most of us will be how to get a hold of, install, and get 
running these commercial apps sold in conjuction with Caldera to get 
them to run on our Debians, Slackware, and heaven-help-us SLS's(*).

	-Dan

* SLS was a good distribution for it's time, but since one hasn't been 
released in ages, if you are still using it, you are way out there in 
left field.

--
Dan Newcombe - Clayton State College - User Services - 770-961-3421 
newcombe at aa.csc.peachnet.edu  http://www.csc.peachnet.edu/home/dan/
- Kayleigh I never thought I'd miss you, and Kayleigh I'd hoped
  that we'd always be friends.  We said our love would last forever,
  so how did it come to this bitter end.   (Marillion, Kayleigh)