Earlier this year, I shared our “OSL Future” update, outlining the roadmap to build a more sustainable and resilient OSU Open Source Lab. A key part of that plan was finding a professional-grade physical home for our core infrastructure to replace the facility we’ve called home for the last two decades. Today, I am thrilled to announce a major milestone: The OSL is officially moving to Oregon’s State Data Center (SDC) in Salem, Oregon.

The OSU College of Engineering featured an article highlighting the Open Source Lab’s plans on moving forward after reaching stability following the funding crisis. Read the story here: https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/all-stories/strong-support-stabilizes-funding-open-source-lab.

Are you passionate about Linux and the open source community? Looking to gain hands-on experience in a real-world production environment? The Oregon State University Open Source Lab (OSUOSL) is hiring! We’re looking for an enthusiastic undergraduate student enrolled at a university in Oregon with at least one year remaining in their program. This is a unique opportunity to work with cutting-edge technology, contribute to open source projects, and be part of a team that supports the global open source ecosystem.

Following our OSL Future post, the community response has been incredible! Thanks to your amazing support, our team is funded for the next year. This is a huge relief and lets us focus on building a truly self-sustaining OSL. To get there, we’re tackling two big interconnected goals: Finding a new, cost-effective physical home for our core infrastructure, ideally with more modern hardware. Securing multi-year funding commitments to cover all our operations, including potential new infrastructure costs and hardware refreshes. Pillar 1: The Data Center & Hardware Challenge Our current data center is over 20 years old and needs to be replaced soon. With Oregon State University evaluating the future of this facility, it’s very likely we’ll need to relocate in the near future. While migrating to the State of Oregon’s data center is one option, it comes with significant new costs. This makes finding free or very low-cost hosting (ideally between Eugene and Portland for ~13-20 racks) a huge opportunity for our long-term sustainability. More power-efficient hardware would also help us shrink our footprint.

I am writing to inform you about a critical and time-sensitive situation facing the Open Source Lab (OSL). 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.