The Open Source Lab (OSL) at Oregon State University helps run infrastructure for Debian, GNOME, Inkscape, LineageOS, Alpine Linux, and many other open-source projects. The group is now asking for help securing new sponsors, or it will have to “shut down later this year.”
A new blog post from the OSL explains, “Over the past several years, we have been operating at a deficit due to a decline in corporate donations. While the Oregon State College of Engineering (CoE) has generously filled this gap, recent changes in university funding makes our current funding model no longer sustainable. As a result, our current funding model is no longer sustainable.”
The Open Source Lab has operated for 22 years as hosting infrastructure for various open software projects, in partnership with Oregon State University’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. It provided mirroring and hosting projects for Mozilla, the Apache Software Foundation, and the Linux kernel for many years, and currently runs infrastructure for “over 500 free and open source projects from all over the world.”
The group currently runs some infrastructure for Alpine Linux, BusyBox, CentOS, Fedora, Debian, Deluge, FFmpeg, postmarketOS, Inkscape, Firefox, GNOME, MacPorts, Haiku, LineageOS, Gentoo, Tor, QEMU, and hundreds of other software projects. If you’ve ever downloaded a Linux distribution or open-source application, there’s a chance that it was compiled or downloaded from an OSL server. In addition to helping the larger open-source software community, the group employs Oregon State undergraduate students with paid engineering internships. Everyone wins: students get a job, and you get to download your favorite Linux distribution for free.
The Open Source Lab is hoping to secure $250,000 in committed funds to continue operating. At least one large corporate sponsor is “working to increase their support,” but the OSL is still looking for more companies to help cover costs. You can also donate through the OSU Foundation, which is an IRS 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.
Many software projects have put out calls for OSL donations. An account for Rocky Linux said, “The beacons are lit, @osuosl calls for aid. […] Among countless other open source projects, OSL supports Rocky Linux by hosting our ppc64le and s390x build environments. The page for postmarketOS said, “[OSU] has been around for 22 years. They kindly host our gitlab for 6 months now, and provide important services for more than 150 other free and open source software communities. We usually don’t ask this, but please boost for reach, this is important infrastructure for so many FLOSS projects!” The Inkscape project also said, “We at #Inkscape rely on them for hosting our website, mailing lists, mail servers, and DNS. Please consider donating to them so they can keep their services running for all of us!”
If you work at a company that could become a corporate sponsor, check out the source link below for current contact information. Everyone else can head over to the donation page to help support the OSL and its ongoing work in the open-source software community.
Source: OSU Open Source Lab
