LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Glen Turner <glen.turner@aarnet.edu.au>
  To  : LinuxSA@linuxsa.org.au
  Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 16:43:38 +1030

Re: Two Samba courses in Adelaide: 17-Feb and 18-Feb

"Paul Kuhn Esq." wrote:
> 
> May I just enquire something here?  I >>THOUGHT<<  LinuxSA, is a USER group.
> My recollection of USER groups is to assist one another in the special
> interest that we each have, in this case, Linux.  So...  I thinks to mesself
> as I do, why don't we run our own NON-PROFIT course for our "members"?

This is done extensively in the amateur radio community (and also in
canoeing).

But that community has:
 - a well established certification mechanism.
 - pre-developed syllabus.
 - cheap proven course material (two competing course book sets, about $40 for either).
 - excellent in-depth documentation (ARRL HandBook and RSGB Handbook).

I've given amateur radio certification courses, and its easy to get a venue
and slightly harder to find people to contribute the time.  But as Richard notes,
there's a 10:0 ratio for development:presentation.  So the pre-prepared materials
are essential.

The other big difference is that amateur radio has been around for a long time,
whereas Linux is new.  So Linux is just getting a certification system
established.  Cheap course material just isn't here yet.  And in-depth
documentation is a joke[1].

I believe all this is coming.  But it's not here yet.

When the LPI is up and running, and we can buy a cheap good LPI textbook
then I'd be happy to give a "Linux System Admin (LPI level 1) evening
course.  As, I'm sure, would other LinuxSA members.


> This commercial stuff is all very nice if you have company backing and/or can
> charge it to your customer base.. but that means that there becomes those of
> us who have, and the other those of us who will never have..

OK, so the presenter won't get money.  So what will they get paid: maybe
some respect, some gratitude.   Hmmm.  This is a user group where at one
meeting the floor hassled a presenter over a minor technical fault, and
then one member was openly critical over the presenter's supposedly inferior
sound hardware.  Rude at best, immature at the worst.  And the mailing list
behaviour is worse.

Why would anyone give ten weeks of Tuesday evenings for that?

You can see this on the list now.  Richard has developed some excellent
training material, and delivers it at a bargain price.  A more mature
user group would be asking Richard about under what conditions he would
loan the material for LinuxSA members to give a course to other LinuxSA
members.

Regards,
glen

 [1] And don't give me the "you can read the source" line.  The same is
     true of electronics.  But people in both fields need documentation
     to help them get to the level of experience where you can look at
     C or a circuit diagram and know what it does.

-- 
 Glen Turner                                 Network Engineer
 (08) 8303 3936      Australian Academic and Research Network
 glen.turner@aarnet.edu.au          http://www.aarnet.edu.au/
--
 Earth is a single point of failure