Thread: Thought provoking piece on NetBSD
I thought some people in this group may find this letter from one of NetBSD's founders very interesting. http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2006/08/30/0016.html It is current, to the point and has some direct correlations with our project that we may want to be aware of. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake -- === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. === Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240 Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 http://www.commandprompt.com/
It argues that 'forking' a project is not the real solution of a project going wrong but rather staging a palace revolution of the existing infrastructure. On Thursday 31 August 2006 12:11, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > I thought some people in this group may find this letter from one of > NetBSD's founders very interesting. > > http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2006/08/30/0016.html > > It is current, to the point and has some direct correlations with our > project that we may want to be aware of. > > Sincerely, > > Joshua D. Drake
Josh, > It is current, to the point and has some direct correlations with our > project that we may want to be aware of. Well, we're not in any danger of the board of a foundation taking over Postgres. ;-) The only part of this that I see as relevant to us is setting of development goals. And we've already discussed this ad nauseum on the Hackers list and AFAIK have an initial plan (the enhanced TODO), lacking only the resources to implement it this month. -- --Josh Josh Berkus PostgreSQL @ Sun San Francisco
On 8/31/06, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote: > The only part of this that I see as relevant to us is setting of > development goals. And we've already discussed this ad nauseum on the > Hackers list and AFAIK have an initial plan (the enhanced TODO), lacking > only the resources to implement it this month. As a proponent of PostgreSQL over MySQL and other database inside a bunch of companies, one thing that's been problematic is the fact that feature set is accidental, or appears that way. I totally understand that people want to work on what they want to work on, but there are obvious places that Postgres has issues that make it less competitive. I can't go to anyone in the company and say "8.3 will solve X," and in fact, until 8.2 hits the release, I'll not really know what's in it. This makes planning difficult. That's my main real complaint. Chris -- | Christopher Petrilli | petrilli@gmail.com
>
> The only part of this that I see as relevant to us is setting of
> development goals. And we've already discussed this ad nauseum on the
> Hackers list and AFAIK have an initial plan (the enhanced TODO), lacking
> only the resources to implement it this month.
Almost the whole thing is relevant :). Keep in mind that I am not saying
that it is negative. For example the NetBSD core is obviously cranked,
where our Core tends to stay out of the way. That is a positive.
On the other hand, we do suffer from the locked project problem (the
recent recursive query debacle is a perfect example).
We do have portions of a meritocracy in place but we are by no means
mature in that arena. Likely because of our lock problem ;)
We are also better at having cross over between sub projects so that
many people who are the same people are part of many projects. This
allows communication to flow between sub projects.
Not perfect of course :) but better then many I see.
Another odd issue, which may or may not be a positive is that we don't
have a public leader. We have half a dozen people (less I think) that
are very, very public (I am not talking mailing list public).
Anyway, the post as I said was for provoking thought, not for
antagonistic measures. I saw good and bad and thought it would be good
for everyone to review as we are as a project dealing with some of our
own growth problems.
Sincerely,
Joshua D. Drake
--
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Josh, > On the other hand, we do suffer from the locked project problem (the > recent recursive query debacle is a perfect example). Yep, and that was immediately recognized as a problem in need of a solution. In fact, some of the arguments againts the issue/feature tracker were that it would encourage the locked project issue. So the NetBSD experience should inform our design of the future feature/bug tracker: it should be used to encourage new developers (by providing clear specs and status information) rather than locking in old ones. > We do have portions of a meritocracy in place but we are by no means > mature in that arena. Likely because of our lock problem ;) What specific issues do you see? We're pretty strongly merit-based -- the only reservation I see on that is a bias toward more eloquent writers having disproprotionate influence. But I don't see any way to avoid that. > Another odd issue, which may or may not be a positive is that we don't > have a public leader. We have half a dozen people (less I think) that > are very, very public (I am not talking mailing list public). Actually, this issue is a complete red herring. People like to point to Linux as successful because of Linus's benevolent dictatorship, but Linus is the exception rather than the rule. Most of the very successful projects (Apache, Perl, MySQL, Debian, X.org, etc.) are led by councils or companies without a dictator. I can name more than a few projects where the "charismatic leader" was the main thing preventing the project's success. In general, I think that people who harp on PostgreSQL's lack of a benevolent dictator as an inhibitor to progress are people who are not comfortable with democracy and are looking for excuses why company X needs to "take over the project for its own good." -- --Josh Josh Berkus PostgreSQL @ Sun San Francisco
> In general, I think that people who harp on PostgreSQL's lack of a
> benevolent dictator as an inhibitor to progress are people who are not
> comfortable with democracy and are looking for excuses why company X needs
> to "take over the project for its own good."
Well I definitely don't think we need a benevolent dictator... however
considering the relatively small number of people in the public eye, a
definition of goals that we all speak too might be good :)
Joshua D. Drake
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Joshua D. Drake wrote: > > > > The only part of this that I see as relevant to us is setting of > > development goals. And we've already discussed this ad nauseum on the > > Hackers list and AFAIK have an initial plan (the enhanced TODO), lacking > > only the resources to implement it this month. > > Almost the whole thing is relevant :). Keep in mind that I am not saying I totally agree! > that it is negative. For example the NetBSD core is obviously cranked, > where our Core tends to stay out of the way. That is a positive. > > On the other hand, we do suffer from the locked project problem (the > recent recursive query debacle is a perfect example). Yep, but fortunately this problem doesn't happen to us often. > Anyway, the post as I said was for provoking thought, not for > antagonistic measures. I saw good and bad and thought it would be good > for everyone to review as we are as a project dealing with some of our > own growth problems. Yes. There are lessons to be learned. -- Bruce Momjian bruce@momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +
>>
>> On the other hand, we do suffer from the locked project problem (the
>> recent recursive query debacle is a perfect example).
>
> Yep, but fortunately this problem doesn't happen to us often.
I think this might happen more then you think. I ran into it with Alvaro
just a couple of days ago. I brought up 3/4 items I thought he might be
interested in working on for 8.3.
The immediate response was well that is such a person's or that a person's.
Now, all we have to do is actually communicate ;) to make sure that we
move forward to eliminate the lock and we will. However it does point to
the fact that not everyone is going to take that extra step, some are
going to assume that it is being worked on.
Sincerely,
Joshua D. Drake
--
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Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> writes:
> In general, I think that people who harp on PostgreSQL's lack of a
> benevolent dictator as an inhibitor to progress are people who are not
> comfortable with democracy and are looking for excuses why company X needs
> to "take over the project for its own good."
I don't recall having seen that idea being pushed for Postgres ... not
seriously anyway. However, it's certainly true that historically we've
had effectively *no* project leadership, in the sense of anyone setting
feature goals for releases or creating a long-term roadmap. Would we
be better off if we had done that? I'm not sure.
It's pointless to suppose that individual developers would really be
answerable to any project-wide management, since that's not who they're
paid by. So I tend to think that a project roadmap would be more of an
exercise in wishful thinking than a useful management tool. OTOH it
*could* be useful, if there are any developers out there wondering what
they should work on next. Are there any ... and would they listen to a
roadmap if they had one, rather than scratching their own itches?
regards, tom lane
bruce@momjian.us (Bruce Momjian) writes:
> Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>> >
>> > The only part of this that I see as relevant to us is setting of
>> > development goals. And we've already discussed this ad nauseum on the
>> > Hackers list and AFAIK have an initial plan (the enhanced TODO), lacking
>> > only the resources to implement it this month.
>>
>> Almost the whole thing is relevant :). Keep in mind that I am not saying
>
> I totally agree!
>
>> that it is negative. For example the NetBSD core is obviously cranked,
>> where our Core tends to stay out of the way. That is a positive.
>>
>> On the other hand, we do suffer from the locked project problem (the
>> recent recursive query debacle is a perfect example).
>
> Yep, but fortunately this problem doesn't happen to us often.
It seems to me that PostgreSQL doesn't suffer in similar degree from
the "oh, dear, someone has that TODO item; now noone else can ever
look at it!" problem.
The recursive query situation is one where, while they may have missed
the 8.2 release, it's not as if this represents something that sat and
sat and which will see no action for 8.3 because "so and so has it on
their list..."
>> Anyway, the post as I said was for provoking thought, not for
>> antagonistic measures. I saw good and bad and thought it would be
>> good for everyone to review as we are as a project dealing with
>> some of our own growth problems.
>
> Yes. There are lessons to be learned.
I'm not sure how much can be readily learned from the "Oh, dear, we
bundle whatever features people come in with" problem. Managing a
free software project is quite a bit like herding cats; what you get
is what their wanderings resulted in.
To the degree to which people volunteer for things that strike them as
individually interesting, I don't see how you change that.
The classic item for PostgreSQL that people wish it had which has a
pretty wide-open kind of scope is the in-place upgrade. There's the
suggestion that perhaps one of the Sun folk will look at it for 8.3;
that's definitely NOT the sort of thing that fits into the
'independent volunteer noodling around with a feature they find
interesting' category.
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tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us (Tom Lane) writes: > It's pointless to suppose that individual developers would really be > answerable to any project-wide management, since that's not who > they're paid by. So I tend to think that a project roadmap would be > more of an exercise in wishful thinking than a useful management > tool. OTOH it *could* be useful, if there are any developers out > there wondering what they should work on next. Are there any > ... and would they listen to a roadmap if they had one, rather than > scratching their own itches? It seems to me that there's a vital difference between "sponsored developers" and "hobbyists," here. If a sponsored developer's work isn't providing their own organization with value, then some managers outside the scope of PGDG will doubtless demand some answers. And if the organization wants some particular features, that may help guide some developers without PGDG having expended any "managerial effort." Those "answerability mechanisms" don't apply to as material a degree to hobbyists. -- "cbbrowne","@","ntlug.org" http://cbbrowne.com/info/wp.html if (argc > 1 && strcmp(argv[1], "-advice") == 0) { printf("Don't Panic!\n"); exit(42); } (Arnold Robbins in the LJ of February '95, describing RCS)
Tom Lane wrote: > Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> writes: > > In general, I think that people who harp on PostgreSQL's lack of a > > benevolent dictator as an inhibitor to progress are people who are not > > comfortable with democracy and are looking for excuses why company X needs > > to "take over the project for its own good." > > I don't recall having seen that idea being pushed for Postgres ... not > seriously anyway. However, it's certainly true that historically we've > had effectively *no* project leadership, in the sense of anyone setting > feature goals for releases or creating a long-term roadmap. Would we > be better off if we had done that? I'm not sure. > > It's pointless to suppose that individual developers would really be > answerable to any project-wide management, since that's not who they're > paid by. So I tend to think that a project roadmap would be more of an > exercise in wishful thinking than a useful management tool. OTOH it > *could* be useful, if there are any developers out there wondering what > they should work on next. Are there any ... and would they listen to a > roadmap if they had one, rather than scratching their own itches? I think the longer someone is with the project the more they start working on what is good for the project, rather than what interests them. I think we have seen many cases of that. -- Bruce Momjian bruce@momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +
Bruce Momjian wrote: > Tom Lane wrote: > > It's pointless to suppose that individual developers would really be > > answerable to any project-wide management, since that's not who they're > > paid by. So I tend to think that a project roadmap would be more of an > > exercise in wishful thinking than a useful management tool. OTOH it > > *could* be useful, if there are any developers out there wondering what > > they should work on next. Are there any ... and would they listen to a > > roadmap if they had one, rather than scratching their own itches? I would certainly listen to a roadmap if it talked to me ... > I think the longer someone is with the project the more they start > working on what is good for the project, rather than what interests > them. I think we have seen many cases of that. On my particular case, I generally grab some problem that I perceive as important and unhandled, and try to do something to remedy it. This is how I got here in the first place, by fixing some problems in the CLUSTER implementation. This is how I got to doing shared dependencies, shared row locks and autovacuum -- neither of them were problems that affected me in any way. Savepoints were a different matter. I chose to work on them because Bruce and other people on this list suggested them to me, back when I was looking for something to do my undergrad project in. So yes, I'd probably work on something "the community" considered important. -- Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/ PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support
On Thu, 31 Aug 2006, Josh Berkus wrote: > In general, I think that people who harp on PostgreSQL's lack of a > benevolent dictator as an inhibitor to progress are people who are not > comfortable with democracy and are looking for excuses why company X needs > to "take over the project for its own good." One problem I see the postresql at the moment (and I'm porbably touching a can of worms here) is the lack of some sort of certification. One thing linux (or Red Hat) is doing well is supplying the things that corporates are looking for. And the first thing they look for when they seriously start looking at a new technology is training. When they look at training, they go for certifications (as we see all the time with the RHCE). We have a number of large corporate clients here in South Africa, including some of the biggest banks, of which a few are asking for training at the moment. It would be really nice to have some form of certification available that we could present that had some international credentials. Anton -- Forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better past
> We have a number of large corporate clients here in South Africa, > including some of the biggest banks, of which a few are asking for > training at the moment. It would be really nice to have some form > of > certification available that we could present that had some > international > credentials. > > Anton > Anton, Others are also looking for training so I am starting a thread on it as I feel that the Topic should be part of Advocacy. Opinions will likely vary about certification -- but Training? Yes, definitely needed. Below is a snip from a similar post on the Novice list (about 1 hour ago). *********************************** from Novice**************************** On Thu, 2006-08-31 at 15:42 -0400, Ray Stell wrote: > What is the best value for training bucks for pg admin/internals? > I know the answer, of course, read the source, but I'd like to take a class > if there is a great one to be found. Thanks. Wouldn't this be the perfect opportunity for one of the gurus to announce their killer new online gratis training program? Andy *******************************************************************************
nhrcommu@rochester.rr.com wrote:
>> We have a number of large corporate clients here
> Anton,
> Others are also looking for training so I am
> starting a thread on it as I feel that the Topic
> should be part of Advocacy. Opinions will likely
> vary about certification -- but Training? Yes,
> definitely needed.
The biggest issue is not training , at least in america.
There are at least 4 *known* trainers that do PostgreSQL.
Big Nerd Ranch
Command Prompt
OSTG
Varlena
Sincerely,
Joshua D. Drake
--
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On Thursday 31 August 2006 14:41, Josh Berkus wrote:
> > We do have portions of a meritocracy in place but we are by no means
> > mature in that arena. Likely because of our lock problem ;)
>
> What specific issues do you see? We're pretty strongly merit-based -- the
> only reservation I see on that is a bias toward more eloquent writers
> having disproprotionate influence. But I don't see any way to avoid that.
>
I think some members of this community confuse volunteerism with meritocracy.
--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
On Thu, Aug 31, 2006 at 11:41:41 -0700, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote: > > In general, I think that people who harp on PostgreSQL's lack of a > benevolent dictator as an inhibitor to progress are people who are not > comfortable with democracy and are looking for excuses why company X needs > to "take over the project for its own good." I think Postgres is best described as ruled by an Oligarchy. I would expect a democracy to at least include all of the developers in votes. However when things are decided by a vote rather than consensus it is core that votes. (I think Debian would be a good example of an open source project run as a democracy.) On a related comment to that story, there have been a fair number of people stating that they think the GPL vs BSD license has been very important in getting companies to give back to the project. I think Postgres has done quite well with having companies give back code and resources to the project and makes a good counter example to these claims. There probably are some license effects, but other things also affect companies' decisions on giving back to projects they benefit from.
Martijn van Oosterhout wrote: > Do we want to keep relying on the system libraries for collation, or > do we want to use a cross-platform library like ICU or do we want to > create our own collation library? ICU seems fine. -- Peter Eisentraut http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/
> Training I agree with, but certifications can go either way. A good
> example of where certifications are generally NOT going to work in your
> favour is the fiasco that Oracle has created with their OCP
> certification over the past 6 or so years. So many people were pushed
> through these OCP mills that their certifications have become worthless.
> HR types were finding that these Oracle-certified dba/developers are of
> dubious quality at best -- even though they have a piece of paper
> stating that they are officially trained. I know that when we look at
> prospective employees, that designation is totally ignored. It is their
> experience and ability to do the job properly that count more than
> anything.
There are ways around that though. I don't know much about the OCP but I
know that the Cisco certs are *tough*.
Microsoft is another cert that is useless. They key is simple:
You should not be able to pass the test by reading an exam.
There needs to be things on the test that you *only* gain from real
world experience.
Joshua D. Drake
>
> my two bits.
>
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On Friday 01 September 2006 10:02, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > The biggest issue is not training , at least in america. > There are at least 4 *known* trainers that do PostgreSQL. > > Big Nerd Ranch > Command Prompt > OSTG > Varlena AHEM... SRA ;-)
Robert Bernier wrote: > On Friday 01 September 2006 10:02, Joshua D. Drake wrote: >> The biggest issue is not training , at least in america. >> There are at least 4 *known* trainers that do PostgreSQL. >> >> Big Nerd Ranch >> Command Prompt >> OSTG >> Varlena > > AHEM... SRA ;-) Who? ;) Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives? > > http://archives.postgresql.org > -- === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. === Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240 Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 http://www.commandprompt.com/
Joshua D. Drake wrote: > >> Training I agree with, but certifications can go either way. > > Guys, a multiple perspective is important. Your perspective is valid, but doesn't address the true purpose of these easy certs. They are designed to give the companies involved larger mind space among programmers, admins, and companies hiring them. They are a self-fulfilling prophecy -- here is our trained army of certified blah blahs. Of course the tests are easy. They are meant to suck in the maximum number of mediocre technos with large training fees, while at the same time getting commitments from these folks to be a Microsoft "something" or an Oracle "something" or a Redhat something. The cream of the crop are then enticed into tougher courses with larger fees. Certification is a Profit Center And don't mistake their force. a MSCE does get more money, does find it easier to get hired in small companies. Maybe Postgresql should think like the big companies. Establish a Postgreesql certification process as a profit center, where the profits can be funnelled into bounties for getting development things done with the database. No matter who we are, money drives our efforts. Pervasive demonstrated that. But for every good writer like Momjean there are 100 programmers less gifted in human relationships who need to eat. Instead of a guru in charge which I will call the linus model, a long range blueprint or roadmap could be constructed by the core group, with bounties placed on the less heroic development efforts that cause no increase in presitge. And a bonus system for work completed on time could be established. JMTCWAAMG Michael -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.11.7/436 - Release Date: 9/1/2006
On Certification (was Re: [GENERAL] Thought provoking piece on NetBSD)
From
Christopher Browne
Date:
In the last exciting episode, mdean@xn1.com (mdean) wrote:
> Guys, a multiple perspective is important. Your perspective is
> valid, but doesn't address the true purpose of these easy certs.
> They are designed to give the companies involved larger mind space
> among programmers, admins, and companies hiring them. They are a
> self-fulfilling prophecy -- here is our trained army of certified
> blah blahs. Of course the tests are easy. They are meant to suck
> in the maximum number of mediocre technos with large training fees,
> while at the same time getting commitments from these folks to be a
> Microsoft "something" or an Oracle "something" or a Redhat
> something. The cream of the crop are then enticed into tougher
> courses with larger fees. Certification is a Profit Center
Certification is only a profit center if you can get the price tag
down to something reasonable.
It costs on the order of $75K/year to keep an exam in place at Vue,
which is in addition to the cost of initially building an exam, which
means you can only make money if there are thousands of certificants.
It is *expensive* to set up an exam; it only starts to become
profitable if you're giving out tens of thousands of them per year.
My understanding is that the LPI exams for Linux are only *barely*
breaking even, and that's with a fair bit of support from IBM and
Novell.
This represents the compelling part of why PostgreSQL certification
hasn't gone very far thus far; it is *so* expensive to deploy tests
because this has fallen into the hands of the oligopoly of Pearson VUE
and Thompson/Prometric. As competitors pop up, they have the money to
buy them out. (And I probably benefit; I hold shares in Thompson...
:-))
There is a BSD Certification program ongoing; they have run into much
the same issue: to do this easily, they would need a boatload of money
to deploy testing facilities that they simply don't have.
If someone had $1M (of whatever sort of dollar doesn't too much
matter), they might in principle be able to get a new testing network
going; of course, that would probably lead to a buyout from the
oligopoly.
My counterquestion: Do you think that establishing a training network
(only to watch it get snatched up by one of those companies) is a
better use of $1M than any of the other possible uses? It strikes me
as one of the poorer uses of that kind of money...
> And don't mistake their force. a MSCE does get more money, does
> find it easier to get hired in small companies.
Maybe on your planet. The value of an MCSE is discounted pretty
heavily on mine, now that they have come up with curriculum that allow
"certification farms" to spin through unskilled people that can
memorize enough answers in 6 weeks to pass the exam.
The only certs that I hear about that are considered of high value is
CCNA/CCNP (Cisco).
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and security clearance. <http://www.eviloverlord.com/>
On Sun, 3 Sep 2006, mdean wrote: > Guys, a multiple perspective is important. Your perspective is valid, but > doesn't address the true purpose of these easy certs. They are designed to > give the companies involved larger mind space among programmers, admins, and > companies hiring them. They are a self-fulfilling prophecy -- here is our > trained army of certified blah blahs. Of course the tests are easy. They > are meant to suck in the maximum number of mediocre technos with large > training fees, while at the same time getting commitments from these folks to > be a Microsoft "something" or an Oracle "something" or a Redhat something. > The cream of the crop are then enticed into tougher courses with larger fees. > Certification is a Profit Center And don't mistake their force. a MSCE does > get more money, does find it easier to get hired in small companies. Maybe > Postgresql should think like the big companies. Establish a Postgreesql > certification process as a profit center, where the profits can be funnelled > into bounties for getting development things done with the database. No > matter who we are, money drives our efforts. Pervasive demonstrated that. > But for every good writer like Momjean there are 100 programmers less gifted > in human relationships who need to eat. Instead of a guru in charge which I > will call the linus model, a long range blueprint or roadmap could be > constructed by the core group, with bounties placed on the less heroic > development efforts that cause no increase in presitge. And a bonus system > for work completed on time could be established. As someone that is constantly selling into corporates, this is sad (except for the money part) but true. For accountants that have NO idea what the techspeak mean, the only thing they have to trust is those little pieces of paper from companies they have heard from. I think the quality of the RedHat certs are higher than some of the others, and that is something we should strive for. Anton -- Forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better past
On Sun, 3 Sep 2006, Christopher Browne wrote: > Certification is only a profit center if you can get the price tag > down to something reasonable. > > It costs on the order of $75K/year to keep an exam in place at Vue, > which is in addition to the cost of initially building an exam, which > means you can only make money if there are thousands of certificants. > > It is *expensive* to set up an exam; it only starts to become > profitable if you're giving out tens of thousands of them per year. > > My understanding is that the LPI exams for Linux are only *barely* > breaking even, and that's with a fair bit of support from IBM and > Novell. I'd stay FAR away from a VUE certification. Multiple choice is SO last milinium :) I know I'm harpring on Red Hat, but they were voted as best certification recently. No multiple choice, only hands-on , "can you do this" with automated tests that checks for an outcome, not how you did it. > The only certs that I hear about that are considered of high value is > CCNA/CCNP (Cisco). Also completely hands on. To run a propper cert will require some dedicated people, no you need to pay the exhorbitant VUE fees. It will take longer to build the cert and get enough people trained, the end quality will be higher. Anton -- Forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better past
Re: On Certification (was Re: [GENERAL] Thought provoking piece on NetBSD)
From
Robert Bernier
Date:
I can give you a bit of information on BSDcertification.org 's (http://www.bsdcertification.org/) testing infrastructureinitiative, see below.... On Sunday 03 September 2006 22:15, Christopher Browne wrote: > It costs on the order of $75K/year to keep an exam in place at Vue, > which is in addition to the cost of initially building an exam, which > means you can only make money if there are thousands of certificants. > > It is *expensive* to set up an exam; it only starts to become > profitable if you're giving out tens of thousands of them per year. > > My understanding is that the LPI exams for Linux are only *barely* > breaking even, and that's with a fair bit of support from IBM and > Novell. > > This represents the compelling part of why PostgreSQL certification > hasn't gone very far thus far; it is *so* expensive to deploy tests > because this has fallen into the hands of the oligopoly of Pearson VUE > and Thompson/Prometric. As competitors pop up, they have the money to > buy them out. (And I probably benefit; I hold shares in Thompson... > > :-)) > > There is a BSD Certification program ongoing; they have run into much > the same issue: to do this easily, they would need a boatload of money > to deploy testing facilities that they simply don't have. It was understood from day one that BSDcertification.org would not have much in the way of funds therefore the plan is tocreate their own 'testing infrastructure'. Thus far, the database engine framework, to create the questions, has been designedand is currently being used to populate a postgres database with questions. Meanwhile, the group has been conductingsurveys accross the world defining reasonable rates for each region (I think it's been published onsite but I can'tremember). The group has also identified a methodology procuring testing sites at a deep discount but is keeping thatto themselves for the time being. > If someone had $1M (of whatever sort of dollar doesn't too much > matter), they might in principle be able to get a new testing network > going; of course, that would probably lead to a buyout from the > oligopoly. The biggest cost thus far has been paying for the services of a psychometrist tasked with framing the design constraintsfor the database engine, whom by way comes from LPI. But there are other costs, fortunately there's a dedicatedteam so the money issue is only slowing down the work. But it would certaintly help accelerate the process if theyhad $20,000+ in the kitty. > My counterquestion: Do you think that establishing a training network > (only to watch it get snatched up by one of those companies) is a > better use of $1M than any of the other possible uses? It strikes me > as one of the poorer uses of that kind of money... The BSDcertfication.org testing infrastructure can't get snatched up i.e. the group is organized along BSD lines thereforeit's impossible to get taken over, (sound familiar? ;-). Furthermore, once the testing infrastructure is fully developed the intention is to make it available world wide at an "extrememly"reasonable price. For example, UNESCO would benefit a lot because it currently uses a big chunk of its moneyto sponsor individuals from the developing nations to get standards testing which they must pay at the full rate toeither one of the two biggies that currently dominate the scene. The infrastructure will be capable of setting up testsfor 'any' standards or requirements including PostgreSQL, if we want to. It just happens to be that BSD certificationthat will be the first one based on this infrastructure. So far it's shaping up pretty good. For more information go to the website, http://www.bsdcertification.org/, or contactthe BSDcertification.org chair dlavigne6@sympatico.ca (Dru). > > And don't mistake their force. a MSCE does get more money, does > > find it easier to get hired in small companies. I agree. cheers Robert
Re: On Certification (was Re: [GENERAL] Thought provoking piece on NetBSD)
From
Robert Bernier
Date:
On Monday 04 September 2006 06:22, Robert Bernier wrote: > I can give you a bit of information on BSDcertification.org 's > (http://www.bsdcertification.org/) testing infrastructure initiative, see > below.... Here's some new information that I'd like to pass on: > http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/unix/bsd/archives/why-certification-exams-suck-more-on-cost-11060 > http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/unix/bsd/archives/why-certification-exams-suck-testing-center-requirements-11066 > > The BSD Certification Group will be publishing a report this Friday on the > recent survey of test candidates which asked for their geographic > locations, the maximum price they are willing to pay to take a > certification, and how they would like to take that certification. The > report will clearly show that the existing commercial solutions neither > meet the needs of testing candidates nor are affordable to test creation > organizations who anticipate a low volume of test takers. > > Dru
Re: On Certification (was Re: [GENERAL] Thought provoking piece on NetBSD)
From
"Christopher Kings-Lynne"
Date:
How about we set up our own, community-based, "certification". This will of course not be as policable as pro certification, but I say it would be good anyway. We can set up this software: http://www.tecnick.com/public/code/cp_dpage.php?aiocp_dp=tcexam (Runs on PostgreSQL it seems) And then collaboratively we can build several exams on different topics. Then we have them as links on the Postgresql site. Chris
On Tue, 5 Sep 2006, Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote: > How about we set up our own, community-based, "certification". This > will of course not be as policable as pro certification, but I say it > would be good anyway. > > We can set up this software: > > http://www.tecnick.com/public/code/cp_dpage.php?aiocp_dp=tcexam > > (Runs on PostgreSQL it seems) When thinking exams, don't think memorization. Think doing things and getting a job done. All product documentation provided. That way you land up with exams that are worth something in the real world. Anton
Anton de Wet wrote: > When thinking exams, don't think memorization. Think doing things and > getting a job done. All product documentation provided. That way you > land up with exams that are worth something in the real world. Hear hear. Rote learned lists can be forgotten easily, but once you learn how to ride a bike you never forget.. Gr, Koen -- K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/ Networking, hosting, embedded systems, unix, artificial intelligence. Public PGP key: http://www.metro.cx/pubkey-gmc.asc Wondering about the funny attachment your mail program can't read? Visit http://www.openpgp.org/
Robert Bernier wrote: > On Friday 01 September 2006 10:02, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > >> The biggest issue is not training , at least in america. >> There are at least 4 *known* trainers that do PostgreSQL. >> >> Big Nerd Ranch >> Command Prompt >> OSTG >> That's OTG - (http://www.otg-nc.com) OSTG are the slashdot/sourceforge people... -- Chander Ganesan Open Technology Group, Inc. http://www.otg-nc.com >> Varlena >> > > AHEM... SRA ;-) > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives? > > http://archives.postgresql.org >