Re: [Linux-aus] Ubuntu Certification (was: lca2005 CD)

[Martin Pool <mbp@sourcefrog.net>]

On 5 Apr 2006, at 14:42 , Steve Walsh wrote:
> > I reckon it'd be great if more distros supported, assisted and  
> > improved the
> > LPI effort. :-)

Yes.

> And therein lies another problem. How can Distro's without  
> SugarDaddy or
> Company assistance improve the LPI effort. If you were to go to  
> Gentoo,
> Slackware, DSL or FreeBSD and say to them "Hi, in your copious free  
> time,
> can you guys work with us to write a certification test for your  
> distro so
> we can insert a testing into the LPI stream ASAP?", I can image the  
> response
> would be a resounding silence, followed by a some rather colourful  
> language.
> I know there are groups like the FreeBSD and the Gentoo foundation,  
> but I'm
> sure paying people to work for a long period of time to create the  
> required
> tests.

Gentoo (for one) write excellent documentation of other kinds.  I  
don't see anything essential about certification tests that means  
they can only be written by company-backed distributions.  (Pretty  
much every time someone says "intellectual product $foo can only be  
produced by a corporation" they're eventually proved wrong.)

I don't know if just giving the test material to LPI would be enough  
for them to start using it.

Perhaps the cause is this: employers who care about certification  
also tend to like company-backed distributions?

--
Martin