Re: Fw: [gentoo-dev] where goes Gentoo?

[Joshua Brindle <method@gentoo.org>]

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

>Matthew Marlowe wrote:
>
>  
>
>>A clueful sysadmin with gentoo is a far superior arrangement 
>>provided the rate of hardware installs isn't too much. For very large
>>environments with 100+ boxes, I'd definitly agree with you that
>>gentoo has a long way to go.
>> 
>>
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>Well ... as far as I'm concerned, "clueful sysadmin" == Gentoo Certified
>Engineer. That's something we *can* do -- start certifying people the
>same way Red Hat does.
>
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not a good idea (though not a horrible one either). the problem is that 
1) there is no target audience (ie, you won't make money from the 
hobbiest gentoo users that know they are clueful) and very few 
enterprises run gentoo (before anyone freaks out about this >1000 is 
very very few). not a big enough audience to justify the cost.

We actually thought about this a long time ago, maybe a couple years. I 
talked to one of the guys that worked on the LPI tests and they said 
there were large costs >$10000 associated with getting the test ready 
for even beta testing (psychometrics and such are very expensive) and 
then whatever deals with the test facilities.

and what does it give us exactly?

and ultimately having a certification really means support..,

maybe in a few years when we have loads of cash and people willing to 
put god aweful hours into making it happen..

Joshua

>For large environments with 100+ boxes, as long as they're all x86 and
>i686 or better, you could have a small-to-medium compile farm with
>/usr/portage/packages exported via NFS.
>
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>>I think Gentoo shouldn't rule out providing some support and flexibility
>>for any need that a significant amount of its userbase is interested in.
>>And, I know there are a significant number of devs already who
>>have at least some interest in enterprise support do to conversations
>>I've had via IRC.
>>
>>I definitly don't expect that the entire gentoo community or dev base
>>should go substantially out of their way or change organizational structure
>>to facilitate enterprise capabilities.  Just allow some startup biz that 
>>eventually comes along to be able to provide a backported snapshot
>>based tree for their own customers.
>> 
>>
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>I think you underestimate the difficulty of running a successful
>"startup biz". I don't think Ubuntu would have gotten where they are if
>the founder hadn't been rich to start with.
>
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>>>>Also I find it amusing when people say that Gentoo exists for the
>>>>users.  I think that is wrong.  Gentoo exists for the *developers*.
>>>>It's our playground, and it's the reason we use a live tree rather
>>>>than switching to an actually sane approach.  The users are cool
>>>>because they point out bugs, help solve problems on bugzilla, suggest
>>>>enhancements, provide patches, and notify us of package updates.
>>>>Sometimes they become developers.  But the truth is that Gentoo sees
>>>>improvement and maintenance in the areas that appeal to the
>>>>developers.  And that is why Gentoo exists for the developers first,
>>>>the users second.
>>>>
>>>>     
>>>>
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>>>>
>>Thats part of the reason that I'm a developer - because I like interacting
>>with the dev community here.  But, the users have their own role and 
>>the above could be taken the wrong way.
>> 
>>
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>Well ... as a user, I certainly didn't take it the wrong way.
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