WBITT, which started out as a humble beginning in the early 2006, has now become a recognized entity of it's own. Alhumdulillah. I am very thankful and grateful to Allah Almighty for His blessings. I also want to thank the community for joining hands together, and making this a success.

This article is in-fact in response to the lot of emails I have received today, related to an advertisement published in “The Daily Jang” newspaper, printed from Islamabad, Pakistan, dated, Sunday, 07 March 2010, from RedPro Education. The advertisement claims that the institute is “recommended” and “supported” by the founders of wbitt.com (me).

This, ..... is true.

Since this opened up the subject of a lot of questioning and certification / verification of the statement in the advertisement, I decided to make a few things very clear and announce it to community.

The first thing is that, I am a no-one. I am a learner myself. I do not consider myself above others. I believe in mutual respect and professionalism. However, I do not endorse / recommend any individual, and any company, out there, just like that. Since “wbitt.com” is looked at by most of Linux Community as a place to learn. Endorsement/Affiliation coming from “wbitt.com” is a serious responsibility. This, in-turn makes me careful in performing my part of responsibilities. This means that there is a criteria, which you have to fulfill, if you ever want to (bother to) get endorsed/affiliated by “wbitt.com”.

(I will use the words Endorsement and Affiliation interchangeably in this text).

Yassir Faraz, from RedPro Education, Islamabad, accessed me more than a year ago, and asked for this endorsement. I was happy to hear from him. He is an ex-collegue of mine, and a good friend, running his own training institute. I still had to tell him that I cannot endorse an institute / individual until I am clear of certain things. I conveyed him my concerns. He already had most of the concerns taken care of, when he first talked to me on this subject, and worked upon the rest of them in next few months. Because of my limited availability things could not materialize immediately. In the start of this month, we had a deal.

The point behind mentioning this all, to all of you, is that, “it is not that simple”. And if it is “wbitt.com”, even my close / trusted friend has to go through a (so called certification/assurance) process to get this kind of support.

WBITT is all about spreading the knowledge, causing advancement in all fields of life and sciences, primarily, IT . If you are doing that, sincerely and honestly, you are good to go, and you do not need any endorsement. However, if you still want to go ahead and want wbitt.com's endorsement, you have to make sure that you satisfy the following conditions and assure that to wbitt.com management. It applies to individual/free-lance trainers and training/educational institutes.

1. You must provide quality education.
2. You must maintain the quality of education at all times.
3. You must have quality instructors to teach the respective training courses. They must have on-job/field experience of the technology they teach. Not book-worms only.
4. Your instructors must be certified on the technologies they are delivering training for. For Linux related training, I will recognize RHCT, RHCE, LPI, Linux+ and similar.
5. If you are an individual seeking for affiliation/endorsement, you will need to be certified on related technologies.
6. You must provide, proper lab facilities to the students.
7. You and your institute must never encourage use of any sort of brain-dumps for exam preparation.
8. You and your institute must not make false commitments to students about exam dates and schedules. Be as clear and transparent as possible. Student's time and money is as important as yours, and as mine.
9. You should be delivering training on technologies, which are actually helpful for students in the ever growing and demanding IT market. That means, your courses should be powerful enough to match wbitt.com's “Tomorrow's Technologies” concept. e.g. Linux Certification track courses: RHC(T/E/A), LPI, Linux+, High Availability Technologies/Cluster technologies, such as Load Balancing, High Availability, High Performance Computing, etc. Open-Source database administration courses, such as MySQL / PostgreSQL. Database clusters. Virtualization with XEN, KVM and VMware. PERL and Python Programming. Secure web programming with PHP, Java, etc. Network Security, VPN, Ethical Hacking, Penetration Testing, etc. VOIP, such as Asterisk, Trixbox, etc. I leave the rest to your imagination.
10. Just mentioning certain “special / super-duper linux courses” on your brochure, to create your niche will not do. You will need to actually prove that you will be able to successfully conduct the said training.
11. Wbitt.com is mainly related to Linux and related Open-Source Technologies. If you or your institute deal with microsoft related technologies only, you don't need this affiliation. Don't bother reading the rest of text.
12. Please deal fairly with students and teachers. Nobody is stopping you from earning and making money. Just don't slaughter them in the name of wbitt.com.
13. Teachers / trainers should be able to give committed time to the student for their training classes. Training instructors should not be over burdened. That decreases their efficiency and quality of the material they deliver.
14. You must deal with your students professionally.
15. Wbitt.com or it's members, will not be liable, and will not be responsible for your wrong-doings. You should make sure that you / your company, are not breaking any laws in your area/country.
16. Please note, I may charge certain amount of money for this endorsement/affiliation, which will depend solely on my discretion. The rules here are not a money-making scheme. Just wanted to be clear.
17. You must not promote pirated software or cracking or any illegal activity in your institute.
18. You must not use un-ethical means to run your business.
19. In case, there is any violation for the points mentioned above, wbitt.com reserves the right to mention your name / institute's name on the endorsement webpage, with appropriate “un-endorsed” status, with reason for cancellation of endorsement, with date. It is not your name on stake. If you violate the rules and conditions, wbitt.com's name is on stake, which we cannot allow.
20. You are not allowed to use the name “wbitt.com” or show affiliation with it, without taking written permission from the management of wbitt.com. Wbitt.com managment reserves the right to take legal action against such situation.

I grew up in Islamabad, Pakistan. And Islamabad is the city where I spent most of my time learning and earning. This implies that I have worked with many individuals and companies in different capacities, on different projects. This does not automatically qualify any individual / company to use my name or wbitt.com's name for business. Doing so will most likely result in unpleasant situation.

Those endorsed by wbitt.com have their name listed on this page. If someone claims to be affiliated with wbitt.com , this page is the place to verify.

Now the list of institutes which are under the status of “ENDORESED”.

Name: RedPro Education.

Affiliated for: RHCT, RHCE

Contact Person: Yassir Faraz

Location: Islamabad, Pakistan.

Website: www.redpro.edu.pk

The following is the list of individuals, who have the status of “ENDORSED”.

The following is the list of institutes and companies which previously had the status of “Endorsed”, but because of a violation of certain rules, has now been demoted to “ENDORSEMENT CANCELLED” status.

(None yet!)