Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Re: Certification and accreditation

Hi Ian, Evans,

Ian Lynch wrote (08-04-13 23:12)
> On 8 April 2013 07:45, Evans Ikua <ikua.evans@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Thanks a lot Ian for that info and the work that you are doing with
> > certification, especially based on LO. My thinking is that TDF would be
> > better placed to work with your organization to lend more credence to the
> > certification, as well as working with other regional organizations to
> > support the certification.

I think there is no hesitance to do so, apart from the fact that doing 
certification is not simple, and a lot of work.

Currently the work is on a certification program for professionals 
supporting various parts of migrations to LibreOffice (*), and not in 
the certification of individuals for their skills in using LibreOffice.

> > I think one way that proprietary companies
> > normally beat us is o certification and accreditation. Also, looking at the
> > more successful OSS projects, having a certification programme is normally
> > a strategic initiative and a show of maturity of the solution, thereby
> > gaining more trust in the marketplace.
>
> I agree with you 100%. There has always been a degree of confusion about
> the word certification and what it means. The difficulty is that the
> commercial demand for LO certification is currently limited - at least here
> in the UK and from the feedback I have from EU colleagues in the EU. That
> is why none of the mainstream awarding organisations like C&G, CompTIA,
> Cambridge Assessment, Pearson etc do it. Although they have done some
> things with LPI it is glacially slow and no-one in those organisations has
> much idea of FOSS or if there is a potential market.

Indeed it's a tough market.

> We want to be helpful
> to FOSS but in the end something has to pay the wages and development costs
> of things we are already committed to so there is a limit to what time I
> can put into things right now.

I think just as you, many would be happy if they could pick some more 
time from the trees ;-)

> Any sniff of conflict or hassle is a
> big deterrent as far as I am concerned. Since you are already trained in
> our systems, if you have a market, it is easy to support you with the
> certification technology etc. at no cost to you until you start making it
> pay. We understand the difficulties in getting started.  We will do what we
> can to help you get some traction. If TDF want to endorse such a project in
> Kenya it will probably help, if they don't I doubt it is a showstopper but
> you would have to make that decision, you know the local environment best.

Since there is no user LibreOffice certification available now, and the 
other still in development, the best I think is that one can show to be 
part of the LibreOffice ecosystem by using the logo conform the guide lines.
Would that be helpful?

> Maybe do it as a restricted pilot and see how it goes to find out what
> lessons can be learnt for extending later to other areas. I think most
> people under-estimate how difficult it is to get this sort of thing going.
> Difficult, not impossible.

Any experience that can be shared indeed is valuable.

Kind regards,
Cor

--
 - Cor
 - http://nl.libreoffice.org
 - www.librelex.org


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