YD == Yves Dorfsman <y...@zioup.com>
YD> I do believe there has to be a form of licensing that should be able
YD> to increase, guarantee a minimum quality of work. Would you advocate
YD> not to license airline pilots ?
I think it depends a lot on what you want you want to use the license for.
All too often, licensing is used as a way to do something like "keep
unqualified people from doing harm", which is dangerously close to "keep
people who aren't already in the field from entering it", especially if
the licensing requirements are onerous (high fees, many hours of
study/practice, etc).
I don't think a license guarantees quality of work. To pick a simple
example, many people with driver's licenses are in fact poor and even
dangerous drivers.
That said, I think it's somewhat reasonable to restrict who can engage in
some activities that put you at risk of doing a large amount of damage to
people who have no ability whatsoever to avoid being damaged. Driving is
like that; flying a plane is like that.
Being a doctor isn't exactly like that: You can generally choose who your
doctor is (you *should* be able to, anyway!), and decide that you don't
want to be treated by a doctor who has never gone to medical school, or
for that matter who hasn't been certified by the Free And Voluntary
Association Of Doctors -- who can give their seal of approval to doctors
who they think are competent, but who can't actually stop other people
from practicing medicine by force of law.
Being a sysadmin is really not at all like that; no one gets stuck hiring
a sysadmin without having a choice in the matter.
(A user may have their machine worked on by a sysadmin that the user
didn't pick themselves, but the user also has their carpet cleaned by a
janitor that they didn't pick themselves, their paycheck processed by an
HR department that they didn't pick themselves, etc. Those people can also
do a tremendous amount of damage, on purpose or by accident, but only to
people who have voluntarily decided to employ them. That's not a choice
you get about the guy who crashes a plane into your house.)
-Josh (iril...@infersys.com)
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