OSU Open Source Lab
The Open Source Lab is a nonprofit organization working for the advancement of open source technologies. The lab provides hosting for more than 160 projects, including those of worldwide leaders like the Apache Software Foundation, the Linux Foundation and Drupal. Together, the OSL’s hosted sites deliver nearly 430 terabytes of information every month to people around the world. The OSL is the most active organization of its kind, offering world-class hosting services, professional software development and on-the-ground training for promising students interested in open source management and programming. Visit our About page to learn more about the OSL.
To learn about obtaining services from the lab and explore our active projects, please visit our Hosting and Development pages. A list of our hosted projects can be found here, and current updates about the OSL’s activities are located on our News page.
If you are interested in contributing to the success of our projects or sponsoring our students' progress, please visit our Donate page.
Featured story: From support to success
When staff members at the Oregon State University Open Source Lab were working with creators of the Drupal content management system to provide free hosting services to the overloaded project in 2005, crisis hit. A server meltdown left all Drupal websites down for two days, emphasizing the project’s need for further support and motivating the community behind the open source project to donate double the amount needed to purchase a new server to be hosted at the OSL.
As soon as the lab began hosting Drupal, two student system administrators, Narayan Newton and Eric Searcy, attacked the task of expanding the project’s overloaded infrastructure, building a cluster for Drupal’s websites that could be scaled with the company’s growth. And its popularity continued to grow. While Newton and Searcy handled the infrastructure needs, Drupal contributors were able to focus on the project, resulting in its size tripling following the move to the OSL.
Drupal servers at the Open Source Lab.
“Had the OSL not stepped up and offered hosting, we probably would have had to find hosting of our own and paid for it, which would have put too much financial burden on the project at the time and severely hampered the project,” says Jacob Redding, Drupal Association executive director.
Continue reading this story here.