Re: Debian Professionals Association, last try
On Mar 17, I. Forbes decided to present us with:
> On 16 Mar 99, at 14:57, Aaron Van Couwenberghe wrote:
>
> I see the "Debian Professionals Association" as an association of
> people who earn their living deploying Debian. Perhaps the only
> requirement for membership should be that the members spend a
> certain minimum portion (25% ?) of their paid working
> day/week/month deploying Debian. We could also have student
> members for students who work with Debian - unpaid.
Hmm I disagree. The idea was "an association of people who earn
their living from a work that depends on Debian"; suggested
areas of membership till now are, besides consulting: teaching,
and administrating (as in, the sysadmin of a site that uses
Debian internally for some important task).
Then if we go this path, we need "categories" of members.
> - formal qualifications.
> - years experience with Unix, Linux and Debian.
> - number and type of systems installed.
> - number and type of systems currently managed.
> - other relevant experience.
> - other Company/System qualifications (eg Novell, Microsoft, Cisco
> etc).
> - types of service offered.
> - locations (countries, cities etc) where those services are available.
Looks good for consultants and sysadmins. For teachers, skip
"number and type of systems *", and "types of service offered"
would mean "courses offered".
> Later we can work out a system of verifying the claims and posting
> proof of that verification on the database.
Some consultants on the list seem to think a certification would
be very important; as the job of an association is to provide
benefit for its members, then (if (benefit? certification)
(create certification-process)).
For teachers, I can assure you that an "official" set of
debianpro curricula (with titles, like "basic Debian course",
"Debian-based network administration course", etc) is definitely
a benefit, and is the closest thing to certification that is
important for us - saying "my courses follows the official
debianpro curricula". A teacher certification process would be
another added bonus, but less important (eg can be left for
later).
> We need a code of conduct.
Yes, absolutely. Also, someone mentioned "written constitution",
I think he is even working on it.
> We need to "elect" a committee. Prime candidates would be
> volunteers who manage the database, web page, draft codes of
> conduct and application forms etc. The committee should be small,
> it is not a bad thing if the persons on it change every now and then.
I say: people who manage the resources, plus two extra people.
One does the integration between all the others; while everyone
should keep an eye open on broken/missing/conflicting things in
debianpro, this person takes a voluntary obligation to actively
search for these ["official nitpicker" ;-)].
The other (we may assign a fancy title as "chairman") is the
speakperson of debianpro to the outside world; does nothing and
has no internal authority, but has the authority to respond
externally for the association and speak on its behalf.
Also, if the association is legally incorporated, we get two new
"resources" that must each have a person assigned:
paperwork/legal representation (title: secretary) and money
(treasurer).
> We must talk to others in the Debian project so everybody can see
> where we fit in.
Definitely.
> Finally a Professional Association should be careful with its
> marketing. We want to be seen as a group of keen Professionals
> not another web site with a sales message.
Good point. Eyes open :-)
[]s,
|alo
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