Linux Foundation Certification program

I was delighted to be able to endorse the Linux Foundations’ new certification program at its’ recent launch,a long with industry luminaris including Mark Shuttleworth.

 “Linux certification that is based on performance and is easily accessible will be key to increasing the number of qualified Linux professionals,” said Mark Cathcart, Senior Distinguished Engineer, Dell. “The Linux Foundation’s approach to this market need is smart and thoughtful and they have the proven ability to deliver.”

Although I’ve contributed little to nothing to Linux in the way of technology, I’m totally impressed in how totally pervasive Linux has become, from embedded to Enterprise, since I wrote the chapters in the Year 2000 IBM Redbook on why IBM was getting involved with Linux.

So the new Linux foundation certification program is a perfectly logical step in furthering the skills and workface that are driving Linux today. Congratulations to Jim Zemlin and the Linux Foundation for achieving this significant milestone.

Linux Foundation Training and Certification

Jim Zemlins Blog entry on the certification program

Linux Foundation Press Release covering the program announcement

16-years? Wow, time to send in a donation to the “Way back machine”, I’d forgotten they have many of my old pages here and here.

Design and development in a globally distributed corporation

This wasn’t a rehearsed or officially blessed presentation. I was given a last minute opportunity to speak to the students at the Sun Yat-sen University(SYSU) school mobile engineering (SMIE) Industry Elite Lecture Series.

We spent longer than planned looking at a number of the unique mobile/transportation, “Internet of Things” student projects. When we arrived late, at 7:45 in the evening, the room was already packed with students lined up on the back wall, as well as sat on the floor.

Speaking to students is always much more challenging than a industry organization. It’s much easier to make assumptions about the level of knowledge of the attendees at Industry events, you can’t make the same assumption about students. Also, giving a talk to those who don’t have the same first language, also requires you to to speak at a cadence that allows them to do realtime translation. A mistake a lot of speakers make, is they speak at their normal pace(often very fast) and stop and wait; the alternative and much worse as both a speaker, and as a listener is when the speaker speaks words slowly and leave big gaps between words, this means lost context and emphasis for both the speaker and the listener, either makes for a dull presentation.

I clearly need to work on my fillers, I said “right?” a few too many times. Based on the long Q&A period after the presentation, both Geoff and I got our points over and overall it was a very enjoyable visit.

The second half of the presentation Geoff talks about the Dell Software Application Monitoring product Foglight, and some of its’ features and functions.