[SLL] faking Unix knowledge? pretend to know open source Unix?

[Kurt Buff]

On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 4:44 PM, Jeremy C. Reed <reed at reedmedia.net> wrote:
<snip>
> My main goal is to make a short list with brief descriptions of concepts
> that a manager (or someone interested) could read and digest so they would
> feel comfortable listening in -- and maybe even contributing -- to
> conversations related to open source Unix. This may including managing or
> hiring Unix admins (I am going to start a new thread based on this).
>
> In addition to concepts, I also plan to include anecdotes and interesting
> trivia that someone may share in conversations with real Unix geeks.

<snip>

> Hopefully I can get this down to less than 50 pages (6x9"). There are many
> books and howto guides that introduce Unix and Linux, but I am looking to
> build a list of concepts that someone can use so they can feel comfortable
> communicating in a Unix conversation or placed in a Unix environment.

<snip>

> Here's a presentation idea for LFNW (anyone want to roll with this?) for
> an audience of spouses of the Linux geeks. (For example, my wife: she uses
> open source Unix every day for 8 years or so, but knows zero Unix.) The
> short presentation would not really be focused to encourage the audience
> to continue to learn, but just give them some jargon and examples and
> reasons of what makes Unix and why open source. Maybe the presentation
> title, could be: "Linux and Unix for the non-geek ... and always a
> non-geek".
>
> So if you had 30 minutes to give this presentation: What concepts,
> fundamentals, a little history, screenshots, software examples, tips,
> tricks, anecdotes, and trivia would you share?

<snip>

This is a very difficult task - really, there's too much ground to
cover, IMO, if you assume no particular technical sophistication, as
in the example of your wife.

*If* one assumes that the target audience is otherwise relatively
technically sophisticated (that is, has background in system/network
administration, or is a competent manager of same, - or ditto for some
other patch of computing generally), then the task becomes much
easier. Then it becomes a matter of noting that there are differing
OSS licenses, and referring them to one or more discussions about that
subject, and then covering the relevant difference between the OSS
world and the non-OSS world for their field. I think that a lot of the
remainder might be expressed as a jargon/acronym dictionary - cultural
translation, if you will, but I don't think that's a really great
solution.

There's a discussion of this kind of difficulty in The Practice of
Network and System Administration, by Limoncelli, et al - I don't have
my copy of the second edition to hand, so can't point out exactly
where, unfortunately.

Kurt