Actaully, as a risk-adverse Enterprise IT guy who typically implements solutions for large corporations who contain a lot of risk-adverse lawyer types, my concern is not that microsoft may choose to sue Linux vendor X, because there is always Linux vendor Y we could switch to without too much trouble, but rather my concern is that microsoft may choose to sue the company I just convinced to implement an important IT solution on linux, and the concern of the laywers who are worried about microsoft coming in at a later time and sueing them (for IP liscencing of things in linux, potentially introduced their by Novell which microsoft is claiming my company does not have a liscence for), and for me, the real concern is having to deal with said lawyers telling me that they aren't comfortable using linux because of such conerns, or telling me that "only Suse is legal to use", becasue they intrepret (and accept) Miscrosofts statements at face value.
Having a "breadth" of knowledge, unfortunatly, doesn't always help a whole lot on the resume. Take this example of a career path and what it shows on the resume:
years 1-2 : system admin and C/C++ developement on both unix and MS, some random database work, with a little html as "the web" takes off. years 3-6 : "ASP" based web development, with MSSQL for the backend database, and Verity search engine, a lot of Access DBs, and perl back end applications, and some ".bat" scripting years 7-8 : convert ASP applicatons to.NET, using C#. years 9-10: new job dealing on verity search engine, but using java/JSP (tomcat) on linux this time, some perl and a lot of shell scripting in the background. Plus add in SAP portal application development and oracle. Plus, all this time, using various flavors of linux at home, some perl cgi pages for friends and family.
A well rounded background. I got 10 year of experience, unix, linux, MS windows, perl java, c/c++, asp, jsp, SAP (and its j2ee), etc.
However, on the resume, it looks like: 2 years Java 2 years SAP, 4 years ASP 2 years.Net 6 years perl 2 years oracle 7 years MS SQL, but none of it was MSSQL 2005... etc.
10 years web application programming, but the only buzzwords anyone cares about is "java" or ".net", or "python" or "php", and while I am confident I can go pick any language, google up the reference, and write complex applications using it, I can't point to a company on my resume where I used it professionally for 5+ years....
I do have 8+ years of Verity search engine experience, which in some circles, is a good thing, but the companies using it are few and far between, so finding a job with it takes time, and generally involves long distance travel.
Granted, there is the occasional platform agnositic shop which actaully likes someone with a variety of experience, but usually all they want is 5-8 years experience in only one language, on one platform, using one set of tools the whole time. The numbers next each particular buzzword needs to be high enough for them to be interested. Having a variety of buzzwords availble doens't help much. Their HR department only sees the buzzwords they were told to look for.
And saying "I wrote some programs using X on my own" as the answer to "which company did you use X at" usually gets dismissed out of hand... They tend to only be interested in claims where you can point to a reference who can back up your claim.
So, in the end, getting *useful* job skills (resume wise) is really dependant on the jobs you happen to work at. If you're already someplace where they decide that "new technology X looks cool, lets try using that", then you get a chance at getting some experience in it. Otherwise you need to find a job because they are looking for skill Y (which you have experience in), and then get to learn skill X there because they happen to use that as well in their shop, even though it wasn't important in their hiring requirements.
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Actaully, as a risk-adverse Enterprise IT guy who typically implements solutions for large corporations who contain a lot of risk-adverse lawyer types, my concern is not that microsoft may choose to sue Linux vendor X, because there is always Linux vendor Y we could switch to without too much trouble, but rather my concern is that microsoft may choose to sue the company I just convinced to implement an important IT solution on linux, and the concern of the laywers who are worried about microsoft coming in at a later time and sueing them (for IP liscencing of things in linux, potentially introduced their by Novell which microsoft is claiming my company does not have a liscence for), and for me, the real concern is having to deal with said lawyers telling me that they aren't comfortable using linux because of such conerns, or telling me that "only Suse is legal to use", becasue they intrepret (and accept) Miscrosofts statements at face value.
Having a "breadth" of knowledge, unfortunatly, doesn't always help a whole lot on the resume.
.NET, using C#.
.Net
Take this example of a career path and what it shows on the resume:
years 1-2 : system admin and C/C++ developement on both unix and MS, some random database work, with a little html as "the web" takes off.
years 3-6 : "ASP" based web development, with MSSQL for the backend database, and Verity search engine, a lot of Access DBs, and perl back end applications, and some ".bat" scripting
years 7-8 : convert ASP applicatons to
years 9-10: new job dealing on verity search engine, but using java/JSP (tomcat) on linux this time, some perl and a lot of shell scripting in the background. Plus add in SAP portal application development and oracle.
Plus, all this time, using various flavors of linux at home, some perl cgi pages for friends and family.
A well rounded background. I got 10 year of experience, unix, linux, MS windows, perl java, c/c++, asp, jsp, SAP (and its j2ee), etc.
However, on the resume, it looks like:
2 years Java
2 years SAP,
4 years ASP
2 years
6 years perl
2 years oracle
7 years MS SQL, but none of it was MSSQL 2005...
etc.
10 years web application programming, but the only buzzwords anyone cares about is "java" or ".net", or "python" or "php", and while I am confident I can go pick any language, google up the reference, and write complex applications using it, I can't point to a company on my resume where I used it professionally for 5+ years....
I do have 8+ years of Verity search engine experience, which in some circles, is a good thing, but the companies using it are few and far between, so finding a job with it takes time, and generally involves long distance travel.
Granted, there is the occasional platform agnositic shop which actaully likes someone with a variety of experience, but usually all they want is 5-8 years experience in only one language, on one platform, using one set of tools the whole time. The numbers next each particular buzzword needs to be high enough for them to be interested. Having a variety of buzzwords availble doens't help much. Their HR department only sees the buzzwords they were told to look for.
And saying "I wrote some programs using X on my own" as the answer to "which company did you use X at" usually gets dismissed out of hand... They tend to only be interested in claims where you can point to a reference who can back up your claim.
So, in the end, getting *useful* job skills (resume wise) is really dependant on the jobs you happen to work at. If you're already someplace where they decide that "new technology X looks cool, lets try using that", then you get a chance at getting some experience in it. Otherwise you need to find a job because they are looking for skill Y (which you have experience in), and then get to learn skill X there because they happen to use that as well in their shop, even though it wasn't important in their hiring requirements.