[BSDCert] recertification

[Evan Leibovitch]

Jeremy C. Reed wrote:

> Having flavour specific certs will cost more in time and money, but I 
> don't see how we can have a cert that has value that tries to cover 
> all the *BSDs. (I mentioned several reasons on this list several 
> months ago.)


There's a lot more diversity amongst Linux distributions than flavours 
of BSD. If LPI could pull off a distribution-neutral exam that is 
endosed by Slackware, Mandriva, and Debian, the creation of something 
mutually acceptable to the BSD variants (or at least their users) should 
be much easier. There are fewer BSD variants and (at least it appears to 
me that) the variations between them are less than exist between, say, 
the Ubuntu and Novell Linux distributions.

Also consider that you don't have to redo the whole exam to allow for 
major variations. In LPI exam 101, there was an objective that you 
needed to know one of the two major Linux packaging systems (RPM or 
DPKG). Candidates could choose, at exam-taking time, whether they wanted 
their exam to have RPM or DPKG questions. It was significantly more 
expensive and complex to create and administer, but far less so than 
creating entirely separate exams (or programs).

- Evan