Re: Money spending, questions for the candidates

["John (J5) Palmieri" <johnp redhat com>]

On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 20:28 +0000, Diego Escalante Urrelo wrote:
> Hey
> 
> On 11/30/07, Bastian, Waldo <waldo bastian intel com> wrote:
> > > > o. What is your opinion on an examination that could carry the
> > title:
> > > >    "GNOME Mobile certified software developer exam"
> > > >
> > >
> > > If the examination is offered by a third party, then I would say they
> > > are violating the trademark guidelines :).
> > > But if you suggest that GNOME via the Foundation could offer a
> > > certification, I wouldn't like to see that, sadly certifications tend
> > > to mean nothing with time due to people taking them "just to pass the
> > > test". I think it would be more healthy to have easier ways for
> > > contributors to show their work and prove how much they have given to
> > > the project, hence showing their possible employer that they surely
> > > rock.
> >
> > Although the company that I work for surely employs a few rock stars,
> > more often a project team or company is just looking for someone who
> > knows how to use GTK+ widgets (think bellcurve). I believe the objective
> > here would be to make it easier for commercial companies to develop
> > solutions based on GNOME and part of the problem that such companies
> > face is finding developers that are familiar with the technology.
> > Reducing that hurdle will help to make the technology more popular. I
> > don't think the Foundation should offer certification itself but maybe
> > it could work together with an existing institute on expanding its
> > training offerings around Gnome technology. Just my 2 ct.
> >
> 
> Interesting, I feel that anyway certifications tend to get worth
> nothing when people start taking them "just to pass them", but still I
> see your point of letting people not in GNOME but users of GNOME's
> technology to prove they know that stuff.
> Certification implemented as training could be a different matter, as
> long as the real "juice" of the thing is the training.
> 
> I still don't think Foundation should get involved into saying place X
> is an approbed training center, I fear that would go beyond its scope.
> 

I also fear it would lead to favoritism though I am all for helping out
a company develop course-ware I am very much opposed to partnering with
one entity over another.
 
-- 
John (J5) Palmieri <johnp redhat com>