BSD Certification Group Releases Roadmap

Jeremy C. Reed writes "The BSD Certification Group announced on Thursday the release of their certification program roadmap. This publication introduces the Group's planned BSD system administrator certifications and the construction of the certification program. The press release is available, as well as the certification roadmap."

Comments

I'm going to make my 9 year old take it

[dezmund]

Just for fun

Re:I'm going to make my 9 year old take it

[Anonymous Coward]

That ain't off topic! It refers to the 9 year old that got the MS cert. Geeez.

Re:BSD FOREVER

[Anonymous Coward]

Lunix is such a piece of shite that only fucktards like you keep using it.

I wonder how many people who say bad stuff about BSD, have actually used it long enough to form any educated opinion about it.

I switched years ago (1999) and have been using all the free BSD's plus OSX and I will not look back. Sometimes Linux supports something a BSD perhaps does not yet support, but damn the BSD's are clean and really nice to use (especially OpenBSD).

The "BSD is dying" crowd are a bunch of morons. BSD is awesome.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well since you care enough to post against it, then surely that must imply that people care enough to work towards it.

BSD is only dead to those who have moved on.

(As it happens, I'm not a BSD fanatic, long live the Amiga)

Re:BSD FOREVER

[Anonymous Coward]

I spent 3 days trying to get it installed, but it kept kernel panicing during installation. Does that count?

Re:Who cares?

[Shanep]

I do.

BSD's do actually get used in some pretty big roles.

Looks like...

[astellar]

...they want to rename "Donate" button to something more complicated...

Re:BSD FOREVER

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you recommend a BSD for my laptop?

I managed to get OpenBSD to run, but without ACPI so the battery drained in an hour. FreeBSD 5 would not boot at all. I haven't tried NetBSD yet, but I hear its very similar to FreeBSD in power management...

Linux can run on the machine with no problems and I get a nice 3-4 hour battery life.

Neutral Certification

[MadX]

I really do think that this will be a good thing.

I have my LPI-2 certification, and I believe the neutral-vendor type certifications are really the best. It serves as a base from which to work. For the Employer there is a twofold bonus.

1) The Person is willing to prove himself/herself that they are able to use the system (without testing by the employer) to a certain degree.

2) The candidate was willing to study. This I see often where a person does not try to further themselves within their field of expertise, yet expect to walk into another job, and expect the employer to know that they are totally capable. There has to be a starting point - and this is it for the x-BSD's

I would certainly see myself doing this certification.

Re:Neutral Certification

[tyndyll]

Death Certificate?

Re:Neutral Certification

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. I was happy when neutral Linux-certification became available and I'm happy the same is in the works for BSD-flavours.

I also totally agree on these (and any) certifications being an entry-point rather than an end in itself. Actually I think there are more employers who realize this than there are Slashdotters who do, and if the employers don't they're likely to get smarter relatively fast.

Re:Neutral Certification

[Itchy Rich]

I have my LPI-2 certification, and I believe the neutral-vendor type certifications are really the best.

Agreed. When the certification authority is also the vendor of the system or environment you're being certified for, you have to wonder how much of their syllabus, weighting, etc. is focused on proving you have the skills for real world situations and how much is based on promoting their products.

For example, accusations have been made against some Microsoft certifications (I haven't done any myself) that the "correct" solutions to the situations posed in exam questions inevitably involve buying more software from Microsoft.

Re:Neutral Certification

[geminidomino]

What? You mean that someone thinks that the MC?E, MOUS, M\w{4} tests are just overpriced, overhyped Microsoft Sales training where YOU pay them for the "privilege" of selling thier products, instead of vice versa?

Yeah, Right. What kind of company would do a thing like that?

Re:Who cares?

[TheRaven64]

I use OS X on my desktop.

I use FreeBSD on my work server.

I use OpenBSD on my internet-facing server.

And in spite of all of this, I still can't bring myself to care about BSD certification, or even really understand what is being offered in spite of having skimmed both linked documents - although anything with a Gantt chart does tend to get auto-ignored by my brain.

my thoughts on certification

[frovingslosh]

I just want to say that as someone who has hired my share of programmers, I'm not impressed with people who have certifications. I find that many times they really have less understanding in the area that they are certified in than I'm looking for, and they have tended to make passing a test rather than working with and understanding the subject their priority. On top of that, they seem to expect better pay than the good programmers because they have a certification.

I understand that this is not the universal trend in the industry, but I want people who can write good code, have the ability to understand things on a system level, and can adapt to new situations rather than certified people who slowly produce poorer quality work and give me blank stares. Give me someone who can write code to make different systems on a network interact, and who will get out network tools and track down complex network problems over someone with multiple network certifications any day of the week. I don't work in a BSD shop and I don't see that happening any time soon, so this doesn't directly concern me, but if I did I would not take this certification as a good thing.

Re:my thoughts on certification

[$RANDOMLUSER]

This is a certification for a sysadmin, which is a different kettle of fish. Many employers are reluctant to allow sysadmins to learn as they go, they're expected to know what to do when The Bad Thing (TM) happens - fast.

Re:my thoughts on certification

[Crixus]

I find that many times they really have less understanding in the area that they are certified in than I'm looking for, and they have tended to make passing a test rather than working with and understanding the subject their priority.

Isn't that true of our education system in general? Testing is done more to rate the teachers that the students. This is a BIG problem with education as I (and others) see it.

My friend David is working on methods of adaptive teaching which adresses these problems to some degree. In fact, he sees teaching no differently than a jazz musician seese music... improvisation.

Re:my thoughts on certification

[n54]

I just want to say that as someone who has had my share of bosses, I'm not impressed with people who mix up OS certifications with programming certifications. I find that many times they really have less understanding in the area that they are managing in than I'm comfortable with, and they have tended to make passing out directives rather than working with and understanding their employees their priority. On top of that, they seem to expect better pay than the good employees because they are bosses.

I understand that this is the universal trend in the industry.

;)

Seriously though, you are completely correct that certifications on their own isn't much good and that some of the people taking them somehow delude themselves as to how smart and experienced they are. However if you were to hire an unknown sysadmin/netadmin with knowledge of a particular OS or network equipment you wouldn't mind seeing that they've actually at least taken some relevant certifications because unlike in programming it isn't that easy for them to really show you their knowledge in a reasonable amount of time. The certifications are simply a way to have a third party back up any applicants claims to a certain level.

Re:my thoughts on certification

[DenDave]

It's interesting because in the hayday of it (gees sound like an old fart..) "geeks" and "hackers" got these jobs and no-one asked a question because, well frankly they didn't know what to ask... By establishing certification programs it was supposed to be easier for employers to be able to guage what kind of meat they had in the kitchen, alas most certification programs are lacking in their implementation. What these guys have lined up for BSD however, looks pretty good. But then again, the current install base for BSD is such that line managers should be fairly competent at recruiting candidates without the need for certificates. This fact leads me to believe that BSD gremmies are poised to make a severe foray into the corporate market and view this lack of certificates as a weakness they need to overcome.

Re:my thoughts on certification

[gregmark]

I took several of the basic SUN SysAdmin and NetAdmin exams a couple of years ago. They may have helped my foot find a door or three, but they definately helped me focus my learning and become a better sysadmin.

At the time, I was self-unemployed (a victim of my own hubris during the bubble when you could get hired for knowing how to spell UNIX) and needed a way to maintain my skills while broadening my base of OS know-how. I used the exams as a way to gauge my weak spots and fill them in with both book knowledge and test environment experience (ie, goofing around on my Ultra 5). When I finally got back on the horse 2 years ago, my learning substrate, if not my OTJ experience, had been greatly expanded. Over the course of the next year, I learned more about good sysadmin practice than I had during the all the bubble years.

Recently, I took the free Solaris 10 exams and passed them. Again, it focused my efforts to learn about many of the new features like zones and SMF.

The value of a certification is determined more by what the certifiee intends to accomplish by earning it than what an employer thinks it reveals about the certifiee.

Re:my thoughts on certification

[Brandybuck]

A certification is like a high school diploma. Anybody can get one, but it doesn't mean they are worthless. Would you hire someone who didn't have a high school diploma? For the same reason, it's not unreasonable to expect your sysadmins to be certified.

If the certification is so damned easy to get, then why hasn't this applicant with ten years experience as a sysadmin got one?

p.s. Notice I keep saying "syadmin" and not "programmer." These certificates are meant for systems administration. It is unreasonable to expect a programmer to have a one, but it should be expected for a sysadmin.

Re:Who cares?

[ciroknight]

Like being major OS manufacturer's platform of operations?

Windows would have never made it off the ground and running if it hadn't been for BSD network stacks and related code. OS X wouldn't be half the operating system if it didn't have its BSD kernel (though they did quite a bit of hacking on it).

BSDs are still alive because their code is needed to be alive. If you commit to a BSD, it's practically public domain; take it and do as you see fit. In my opinion it's the best kind of open source, but of course I see the need for the GPL as well. It's just too bad they can't work together more closely, and are instead moving apart gradually.

Yet another silly certification

[jimmydevice]

MSCD,MCSA,MCP,MCSA,MCSE,CCNA,CCNP,MCDBA,CISCO,BLA, BLABLA...
To bad intelligence isn't delivered in a TLA/FLA.

I'm glad I don't live in your space.

Re:Yet another silly certification

[Brandybuck]

Dear applicant,

Your resume says you have ten years experience administering Sun enterprise servers and workstations, and that in your last job you were directly responsible for maintaining two hundred Solaris workstations including installation, backups, and patches. Yet not once in those ten years did you ever bother getting an SCSA. Why?

Sincerely,
Curious

It is the norm

[Anonymous Coward]

The people with certifications are the people that was not needed by their former employer. Generally, the most skilled people are too busy to have time for the certifications.

And the Indian girl proved their worth. If a 12 y.o. can take the certifications, they do not say anything about the person ability to handle a job, or their experience.

the point is.....

[amodm]

does it help them gain more popularity or market share?

I believe if someone is installing BSD on a company infrastructure, he/she would already be knowing enough about it to run it.

The reason why I say this is that BSD is a good OS, but to believe that its a good OS (in the flood of linux), one has to know BSD well enough.

IMHO, hiring ceritified professionals help when someone installs something about which they don't know enough.

Re:the point is.....

[bad_outlook]

I completely agree with this. While I joined the BSD-Cert mailing list, I've always thought this, if someone can install/run FreeBSD for any amount of time, they know what they're doing. I've run Linux based servers for about 6 years, but BSD just for the past year, and I've learned a ton in that little time. I'm not saying Linux is not as good, far from it, but BSD just has a different way of dealing with things that, to me, just feels more logical. I won't be replacing Ubuntu on the desktop, or Gentoo on my secondary server, but for now I'm really enjoying FreeBSD for my main server with OpenBSD running the firewall.

Now if I could just find work admining BSD or Linux servers, I think I could be content for some time.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone will point this out to you, so I may as well be the one to do it.

No version of Microsoft Windows has ever shiped with a network stack derived directly or indirectly from BSD. Some network applications, notably ftp, did.

OS X does not have a "real" BSD kernel. The kernel is Mach, although the kernel services are mostly derived from various BSD sources, especially FreeBSD. Many of the basic UNIX utilities are BSD derived. All in all, BSD code probably makes up less than 20% of OS X.

BSD isn't dead...

[Auraiken]

at least until there isn't a catagory on slashdot for it :)

Re:Who cares?

[Shanep]

OS X wouldn't be half the operating system if it didn't have its BSD kernel (though they did quite a bit of hacking on it).

Actually, from all the sources I have read, OSX consists of a Mach kernel, FreeBSD userland utils and NeXT interface. All of which, very seriously tweaked and hacked. However from the way Apple writes about the FreeBSD portion, it seems that they may have rolled some FreeBSD into the Mach kernel. Then again when Apple said their new Mighty Mouse was touch-sensitive, I interpretted that to mean that their new Mighty Mouse was touch-sensitive. How silly of me. ; )

BTW, I like Apple hardware and software, so I'm not trying to bash Apple too baddly.

BSDs are still alive because their code is needed to be alive. If you commit to a BSD, it's practically public domain; take it and do as you see fit.

That is why BSD can't die. It will always be with me and it is in some places that even geeks might not notice.

In my opinion it's the best kind of open source, but of course I see the need for the GPL as well. It's just too bad they can't work together more closely, and are instead moving apart gradually.

Recent changes to OpenBSD's malloc might spotlight some bugs in GPL applications which are likely to lead to fixes being sent from a BSD hacker/port maintainer to GPL projects. Already this malloc change has found a 10 year old bug in X which was apparently very difficult to find otherwise.

Re:BSD FOREVER

[Rotting]

Funny... in order to get linux to install on my sony laptop I had to do a network install as I have not yet found a distro that will see the cdrom drive when booting. Beyond that the pcmcia wifi card that I had would never work properly in linux.

FreeBSD on the other hand could be installed off of the cdrom drive _and_ the wifi card worked without issue.

Linux is not bad but at the same time it is not the be all end all as most will have you believe.

Re:BSD FOREVER

[Homology]

I wonder how many people who say bad stuff about BSD, have actually used it long enough to form any educated opinion about it.

*BSD is no exception to the rule that beeing informed is not a requirement before bad mouthing something.

Some of the bad mouthers are Linux users attempting to install and configure a *BSD system, but refuses to read documentation when they have some problems. Much easier to post a mail to a mailing list :-( Not surprising, really, considering the low quality of much Linux distros documentation.

Re:Who cares?

[asciiRider]

You said you don't care about or understand the certification.

Makes sense.

You don't care about it because you run 3 different distro's on desktop class hardware in a non mission critical enterprise shop.

You don't understand what is being offered because the problems (and solutions) you face in your 3-PC world are different than the person who does understand (and care about) this certificaiton.

DragonFlyy BSD?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not flaming here, but asking a simple question. I can see OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and NetBSD being on the cert, but DragonFly? Is the user base that big that it has to be on the test as well?

Re:DragonFlyy BSD?

[liamjfoy]

DragonFly BSD is based upon FreeBSD. Same training can apply to DragonFly.

And you need a worthless piece of paper now?

[Some Random Username]

I am a BSD user myself, but the question is quite valid, "who cares?". The people who use BSDs tend to be people who care more about actual quality, so why would I care about a piece of paper that proves nothing? If I need to hire a BSD guy, I will see if he is competant, not if he took a stupid test. Do we really need the BSD equivilent of MCSEs?

Re:BSD FOREVER

[liamjfoy]

Give FreeBSD a try using powerd. powerd is also a SoC, so expect even better results :)

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

only in sites that cant afford sun sparc hardware.

sol10x86 might change this.

The Chicken and the Certification Egg

[Anonymous Coward]

Background: 38yo geek who got his first programming job 22 years ago and has been full time IT for over 15 years. Self-employeed rent-a-geek... er I mean "IT Consultant" (who does quite well thank you)

So what do I do? I've got more experience and talents than 95% of the punk kids eager to take my customers.. So I go into see Joe business owner and I tell them "Yeah, forget paying MS or other companies for software, I can get you all the software you want free. BTW, You've never heard of me, you don't know penguin from a daemon and I don't have a piece of paper to my name that says I know anything. ... But give me some money and all your IT problems will be solved."

(Like it or not) The vast majority of the people hiring IT consultants have never heard of a BSD. They've only heard of Linux because of the dotcom era. I have for many years mocked people who got MCSE's etc. But a business reality is that some people want that piece of paper...

But if I get any BSD certifications -and I probably will- it will be a dual edged sword. The goobers out there want a piece of paper so they sleep well at night knowing they hired an "expert." BUT I won't mention it to people who know what they are talking about because frankly, I mostly agree with you that if I see someone with too many certifications I run like hell figuring they're an idiot.

However there is one thing that definitely makes me fall to one side of the fence...

[Not baiting people but] (Even the most diehard fans of other platforms can probably bring themselves to admit that) the BSD's are the best pure server platform going. But how do I explain that to a lawyer or a CPA or an investment banker?

Like it or not, things like this boost the whole platform. It gives it an air of legitimacy to the unknowing.

So- I'll hold my nose and sign on the dotted line.

Could be useful

[kellererik]

There seems to be a real test on real computers for the advanced exams, from what I found in the roadmap. If this is really the case, then the exam could be worth something.
Most of the other exams simply prove that the person to be tested was able to click on the right spot while taking said exam. The multiple choice exams tell nothing about the problem-solving skills of the tested person, IMHO.
I got into a discussion with the trainer while taking a training for a certain test, that very trainer told us all questions that might come up and require a "wrong" answer to pass the test. In that discussion said trainer told me: "I know this is wrong, but you want to pass, don't you?"
In short: I don't see any value in the "click-through" tests.

Not me anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm too cool for Linux" bandwagon jumpers do these days."

I believe, in the case of *some* BSD users, that should be 'bandwagon jumping off-ers". Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm cvsupping beta3...

Say what you want, but...

[Toy G]

... I have been recruited much more often since I got a cert. I am all for self-improvement and always relied on self-learning, but I couldn't get my foot on the door properly until I got that bloody piece of paper.

Cisco certified BSD bigot

[puzzled]

  I've been doing that Cisco thing since 1998. CCNA, CCDA, CCNP, CCDP, wireless specialization, one exam away from CCIP, one exam away from Call Manager Express specialization - before you make a farting noise with your mouth understand that I'm sitting at home in my underwear at 9:00 AM and I may not get dressed until lunch :-) I like the dress code at my job.

  My customers have a mix of FBSD 4.11/5.4 and some OpenBSD 3.4 on wireless bridges. My customers are uniformly mid sized shops with need for a serious network engineer but not enough work to justify a full time person. Its very easy to slip BSD into these environments - "Hey, you have an old PC we can use for (X)?" Resistance *is* futile once this process starts.

  BSD certification would mean that the big shops in town currently seeking people with Red Hat certifications, because their management can't poor piss out of a Knoppix CD, let alone assess an admin's skill level, will start seeking BSD certified people. This is a good thing for me personally, for BSD as a whole, and the competitive pressure from the BSD source/ports based aerobics instructors is something the Linux distro binary package fatladies desperately need.

  Yes, I said fatladies. I've got SuSe 9.2 on the machine I'm using to type this and 9.3 on my lappie. I'm looking into it because I think it might be marketable ... but I'd sure rather have BSD for almost everything I do. Don't you shoot your mouth off, you little fanboy you, until you've typed a mile at the console of a FreeBSD box.

Re:Cisco certified BSD bigot

[comzen]

i like this guy

OS X

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, from all the sources I have read, OSX consists of a Mach kernel, FreeBSD userland utils and NeXT interface. All of which, very seriously tweaked and hacked. However from the way Apple writes about the FreeBSD portion, it seems that they may have rolled some FreeBSD into the Mach kernel.

From my understanding. UI is OpenStep (API), not to be confused with OPENSTEP(OS) from the same company. Not well known however, is that OpenStep was co-created with Sun Microsystems. OPENSTEP later became Rhapsody, which later became Mac OS X. Also, Darwin OS came from this. You can easily consider Mac OS X an evolution of OPENSTEP. The mass majority of the code is, when comparing it to OS 9 or below. So in short:

OPENSTEP (OS) + OpenStep (API) + Time = Mac OS X.

Re:OS X

[niteice]

Actually, FreeBSD *is* in the OSX kernel, take a look.

Re:Who cares?

[ak3ldama]

LOL, actually performance of typical unix apps suffer on the newer MACH 3 based Kernels. From what I've heard you're right, Apple had to place a lot of the FreeBSD kernel code into the MACH kernel because seperating this to user space wasn't worth the beauty. I believe a lot of this is reflected on the apple web page describing the OS X design. The whole problem boils down to the fact that writing software for a Micro-Kernel demands a different model than writing code for the typical make function call get return value approach. Not many people like to send and get messages, do things asyncronously, it's quite different from old school unix systems programming. Also checkout the wikipedia page on the Mach Kernel.

Re:Who cares?

[Shanep]

No version of Microsoft Windows has ever shiped with a network stack derived directly or indirectly from BSD. Some network applications, notably ftp, did.

MS Windows with a BSD TCP/IP stack.

Since you speak with such authority ("no version ever"), then you must be a long-time Microsoft systems programmer? One of greater knowledge of this subject than Mr. Adam Barr?

Re:Who cares?

[zsau]

Mach is a microkernel; it doesn't do much, just sits around looking pretty.

Much of Darwin—Mac OS X's kernel—is based on FreeBSD's kernel. It's basically got a single monolithic unix server sitting on top of the Mach microkernel. So it's reasonable to say the kernel consists of (Mach + FreeBSD-based stuff).

(I don't like Apple software. I thought I would, and I tried to--I tried more than $2000 to--but then I failed and just put GNU/Linux onto my iMac G5.)

Re:BSD FOREVER

[Shanep]

I spent 3 days trying to get it installed, but it kept kernel panicing during installation. Does that count?

Your hardware is one or more of:

1/ Broken.
2/ Buggy.
3/ Unsupported.

I install OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD on all manner of machines.

I have FreeBSD 5.4 Release on my Sony VAIO VGN-A49GP, OpenBSD on my various Sun Ultra's, and Apple Macs and NetBSD on a few work Dell machines. Each of them is running within various VMware machines also.

I have *NEVER* had a BSD panic during an install.

Re:BSD FOREVER

[Shanep]

FreeBSD on the other hand could be installed off of the cdrom drive _and_ the wifi card worked without issue.

FreeBSD also runs very nicely on my nice new Sony VAIO.

Linux is not bad but at the same time it is not the be all end all as most will have you believe.

Amen to that. All people need to do is use some BSD's for a while, then go back to Linux and read some man pages, then search on the net for some HOWTOS, then the forums... then, in disgust, come back to the BSD's with current doco. ; )

Another day in a parallel universe

[Anonymous Coward]

Suggestions:

1. Try no to bad mouth Linux until you get a real job. Staring at terminals for small companies that don't even want to hire a network engineer isn't one.
2. If it ever ocurred to you that a certification for Red Hat == a certification form ''bsdcertification.org'' you need to start getting dressed before lunch, get out of your room and get a taste of the REAL LIFE.

Re:Another day in a parallel universe

[puzzled]

  I've had a real job since about the time that the internet got DNS servers. Hint: long before Linux even existed. I probably have Usenet posts that are older than you are.

  It is far better to have it say something like 'President' on your business card, or, if you're truly elite (like me) it says 'network architect' and you get to act as president.

  My girlfriend has her business in her home as well, five blocks away from here. Fridays can be kinda slow. While you were typing your grammatically challenged reply we were, uh, busy. Does this count as 'getting out of the house'?

Re:Who cares?

[zulux]

Already this malloc change has found a 10 year old bug in X which was apparently very difficult to find otherwise.

Always do this! Compile your app on the weirdest platform you can find - it's amazing the amount of bugs you can find!

I use to compile the core of our flagship Windows app on an old Sparc OpenBSD box now and then. The bug-catching was tremendous.

Now that our flagship software runs on *NIX, Windows now the orphan test bed ;)

Since BSD is dying....

[saminator]

...would this be like getting a death certificate?

(forgive me, but someone had to make the joke)

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Adam Barr, who admits he can't verify what he says is "true" because, wait for it, he didn't have access to the NT source code?

Yeah, that's some real solid evidence you and Mr. Barr have there. I especially like the part about it shiping in NT 3.1 but had all been re-writen by the release of 3.5. Even if what Mr. Barr says is true, that means that probably only a couple of hundred lines of original BSD code was present in the release of NT 3.1 at most.

So I stand by my earlier post; no version of Windows ever shipped with a BSD network stack.

For marketing and those with no experience

[Anonymous Coward]

One has to learn somewhere/how. Without college a certification can help if there is no experience on the resume. No?

I have also viewed certs as more of a marketing tool to use when selling services to potential customers:
"We have Certified Engineers & Administrators specializing in Cisco, Novell, RedHat and now FreeBSD"

Requiem for the FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

// Please *don't* mod this up. It has already been done! Thx

... facts are facts. ;)

FreeBSD:
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (Jun 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (Jun 2004)
"[FreeBSD] has secured a strong foothold with the hosting community and continues to grow, gaining over a million hostnames and half a million active sites since July 2003."
What's New in the FreeBSD Network Stack (Sep 2004)
"FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."

NetBSD:
NetBSD, for When Portability and Stability Matter (Oct 2004)
NetBSD sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (May 2004)
NetBSD again sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (Sep 2004)

OpenBSD:
OpenBSD Widens Its Scope (Nov 2004)
Review: OpenBSD 3.6 shows steady improvement (Nov 2004)
OpenSSH (OpenBSD subproject) has become a de facto Internet standard.

*BSD in general:
Deep study: The world's safest computing environment (Nov 2004)
"The world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin."
BSD Success Stories (O'Reilly, 2004) (pdf) ~ from Onlamp BSD DevCenter
"The BSDs - FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Darwin, and others - have earned a reputation for stability, security, performance, and ease of administration."
..and last but not least, we have the cutest mascot as well - undisputedly. ;)

--
Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.

Opinions about certification aside...

[Anonymous Coward]

...what sort of accredation does this organization have which qualifies it to hand out certification? After a quick perusal of the site, I see one FBSD core developer and one DfBSD core developer, but...well, mostly an ad hoc bunch of random guys who really like BSD. Is that really a solid enough foundation to be taken seriously?

-the real Urocyon
Anon only 'cause I'm too lazy to create an account

Re:Who cares?

[Shanep]

I especially like the part about it shiping in NT 3.1 but had all been re-writen by the release of 3.5.

Yeah because 3.1 was never a version of Windows. And you liked the part about it sharing an odd bug that the BSD stack has?

PS, you said *DERIVED*. Fuckwit. Big fucking difference.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that's some real solid evidence

You don't have ANY EVIDENCE AT ALL. If you are going to make a comment like " No version of Microsoft Windows has ever shiped with a network stack derived directly or indirectly from BSD", then you would need to back that up with EVIDENCE. You have nothing.

People who make comments like that either know what they are talking about and can thus back it up, or are otherwise just some AC fool on the Internet.

Incase, you need to be told, you're the fool.

Two ways

[suitepotato]

First, many certs are not easy to get if you don't have an incredible photographic memory. You can study until you are crazed and psychotic and thinking nothing but the subject matter till the moment of the test and blank. Then there's idiots who can memorize rote knowledge but can't use it.

Second, many certs are not germane to the job. No sense in having a BSD cert unless you're in a BSD/System V style shop. Better to have an RHCE even for SuSE than a BSD cert. Closer to the actual matter.

I expect we'll see more HR departments glomming onto this and expecting it as a prereq even for Windows desktop administration.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

BSD? Bones said it best:

It's dead, Jim.

Certifications, here to ruin the day!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now more people who know jackshit about BSD can get a piece of paper saying they do! Hopefully it won't be as bad as MCSE, cisco certifications, or the horrid A+ tests that are put out now.

Road Map

[amyamie28]

Great idea to put it all in order. Cant wait ot get certified myself.

Re:BSD NEVER

[Anonymous Coward]

What did you say? Incompatible kernels, fragmented? Did you say Red Hat, back port, non-stock kernels.

I thought you said that.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know what CMU used to create MACH? They took a soucre which they could freely modify. Its called *BSD. I guess there is more *BSD in Apple than you know about. Try doing some research before posting.

Taught To The Tune Of A Hickory Stick

[Anonymous Coward]

What We Can Learn From BSD
By Chinese Karma Whore, Version 1.0

Everyone knows about BSD's failure and imminent demise. As we pore over the history of BSD, we'll uncover a story of fatal mistakes, poor priorities, and personal rivalry, and we'll learn what mistakes to avoid so as to save Linux from a similarly grisly fate.

Let's not be overly morbid and give BSD credit for its early successes. In the 1970s, Ken Thompson and Bill Joy both made significant contributions to the computing world on the BSD platform. In the 80s, DARPA saw BSD as the premiere open platform, and, after initial successes with the 4.1BSD product, gave the BSD company a 2 year contract.

These early triumphs would soon be forgotten in a series of internal conflicts that would mar BSD's progress. In 1992, AT&T filed suit against Berkeley Software, claiming that proprietary code agreements had been haphazardly violated. In the same year, BSD filed countersuit, reciprocating bad intentions and fueling internal rivalry. While AT&T and Berkeley Software lawyers battled in court, lead developers of various BSD distributions quarreled on Usenet. In 1995, Theo de Raadt, one of the founders of the NetBSD project, formed his own rival distribution, OpenBSD, as the result of a quarrel that he documents on his website. Mr. de Raadt's stubborn arrogance was later seen in his clash with Darren Reed, which resulted in the expulsion of IPF from the OpenBSD distribution.

As personal rivalries took precedence over a quality product, BSD's codebase became worse and worse. As we all know, incompatibilities between each BSD distribution make code sharing an arduous task. Research conducted at MIT found BSD's filesystem implementation to be "very poorly performing." Even BSD's acclaimed TCP/IP stack has lagged behind, according to this study.

Problems with BSD's codebase were compounded by fundamental flaws in the BSD design approach. As argued by Eric Raymond in his watershed essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, rapid, decentralized development models are inherently superior to slow, centralized ones in software development. BSD developers never heeded Mr. Raymond's lesson and insisted that centralized models lead to 'cleaner code.' Don't believe their hype - BSD's development model has significantly impaired its progress. Any achievements that BSD managed to make were nullified by the BSD license, which allows corporations and coders alike to reap profits without reciprocating the goodwill of open-source. Fortunately, Linux is not prone to this exploitation, as it is licensed under the GPL.

The failure of BSD culminated in the resignation of Jordan Hubbard and Michael Smith from the FreeBSD core team. They both believed that FreeBSD had long lost its earlier vitality. Like an empire in decline, BSD had become bureaucratic and stagnant. As Linux gains market share and as BSD sinks deeper into the mire of decay, their parting addresses will resound as fitting eulogies to BSD's demise.

Same old Linux FUD...

[Anonymous Coward]

Same old GNU/Linux FUD, that has been disproved countless times..
In short: the MIT research is *11 years old*, and that Rice study on the TCP/IP stack uses FreeBSD *2.2.6*.

(And btw, Eric Raymond advocates BSD license over GPL.) :)

Re:Who cares?

[usageman]

I think the people who post here care!!