Re: [OS:N:] Re: Questionaire about the support of students rights and the freedom in the learning environment

James Michael DuPont wrote:

> I am not saying redhat should open up its content,
> it has the right to sell content. The FSEDU project seeks to compete
> with RedHat and others by providing content.

Hello Mike.

Regarding the LPI certification program -- FSEDU is not only invited but 
encouraged to compete.

We sponsor the lintraining.com web portal, which provides access to a 
variety of trainers, books and courseware from many sources. The intent is 
to provide a marketplace of preparation materials and methods.

There is no such thing as "official" LPI courseware or training, though we 
assist anyone wanting to produce preparation materials. We provide a 
third-party mechanism through which authors may send their material so that 
it may be independently verified for completeness, but such a process is 
non-exclusive -- anyone who meets the criteria will be so recognized.

Going deeper -- we believe that certification (which is, after all, a 
standard of sorts) should be a community task, while the preparation for 
that standard should be left to anyone and any method. If someone wants to 
take courses, buy a book, or just sit in the basement with a Linux system 
for a month, it doesn't (and shouldn't) matter, so long as they know their 
stuff when it comes time to take the tests.

As such, certifications should not (as they presently are in much of IT and 
almost nowhere else) be primarily used to sell product or help drive vendor 
lock-in. Just imagine if you had to get your driver's from Ford, or if your 
doctor's degree came was issued by Pfizer. Society tolerates training 
regimens in IT that are not acceptable in any other field.

> The courseware, and acedemy, when used are designed to remove the basic
> rights of the students to view and edit the source code of the software
> used. 

Nobody is forcing them to use that courseware, or even choose that 
education path. So long as alternatives exist, their rights are intact.

> 1. A student should not be forced to use non-free software and
> non-standard file formats to take part in the learning experience.

Agreed, though it is incorrect to interpret such rights as to suggest that 
no options may be closed. It is enough that there some open options exist.

> 2. An school offering from an opensource vendor using non-free software
> is questionable to me. But it is thier right to choose the vendor. The
> issue I have is support of open standards and the freedom of the
> students. The software used by redhat is not free and the licenses are
> designed to remove the rights of the students
> http://www.redhat.com/training/elearning/faq.html#nineteen

That is one of the reasons why LPI chose to take a distribution-neutral, 
vendor-independent approach. It is why every major Linux distribution 
vendor (except for Red Hat), as well as non-vendor distributions such as 
Debian, support LPI.

>>And MCSE's must
>>upgrade their certification every time Microsoft decides to provide
>>an "upgrade" to their OS.

As a matter of policy, LPI certs do not expire. At worst, expiries should 
be for fixed terms, not based on releases of software. I don't know what 
the RH policy is on cert expiry.

Anyway, my point is that alternatives exist, and that as such I don't think 
that anyones' rights are being taken away.

- Evan


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