[Sussex] Linuxgym Training / LPI Certification

[Steve 'Dobbo' Dobson]

Jim

I feel to some degree I owe you this after you have complied with my
request for better posting netiquette.

One advantage of taking my time to respond is that you get to see
the response of others, and Steve W's [1] reply is basically saying
the same thing I am, because I would place myself closer to the
'certification is b*ll*cks' camp.

I have never done a LinuxGym, LPI, RedHat or any other Linux related
certified courses.  The only certified course I have taken is with
Symbol, and that was because the company I was with at the time 
required to have a technically certified person on staff to remain as
a Symbol reseller.

I wouldn't say that certification is worthless, RedHat's courses 
no doubt cover aspects of administrating RedHat systems that are worth
knowing, but I will take a SUSE admin that is has more experience 
and enthusiasm any day of the week to look after a RedHat system
than a RedHat certified one that just wants to punch the clock.

90% of the knowledge needed to drive one Linux distro is also needed
to drive the others.  Those that have brought laptops along to a
Lug moot can testify that the first thing I am likely to ask for if
I want to look at their system is a root command prompt.

Some professions (like pilot or doctor) have a safety critical aspect
to them and therefore can, via legislation, impose tighter controls
on their practitioners.  In the main IT is not safety critical,
couple this with the growth the IT has maintained over the last couple
of decades means that just about any Tom, Dick or Harry that knows
which side of a keyboard is up can gain employment as an IT
professional.

So my issues with certification are two fold:

1). In a deregulated industry, where anyone can offer any service
    without approval, it can be difficult to tell which are the
    services worth paying for and which are not.

2). There is a certain class of manager that better at protecting
    his own butt than they are at managing the people under them.
    Such people often put more store in certification than experience
    as, should someone turn out to be less than perfect, they can 
    point and say "How could I tell, he was well certified." [2]

    Therefore, by not being certified myself I don't get invited
    to interviews by managers that are only looking for that kind
    of thing.

Steve

[1]
http://mailman.lug.org.uk/pipermail/sussex/2007-September/014699.html

[2]
The best example I heard of this was of the manager that required a
Microsoft Certified IT person to look after their Unix system.
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