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Urgent - OSU Open Source Lab needs your help
Quoting: Urgent - OSU Open Source Lab needs your help – Gentoo Linux —
Oregon State University’s Open Source Lab (OSL) has been a major supporter of Gentoo Linux and many other software projects for years. It is currently hosting several of our infrastructure servers as well as development machines for exotic architectures, and is critical for Gentoo operation.
Due to drops in sponsor contributions, OSL has been operating at loss for a while, with the OSU College of Engineering picking up the rest of the bill. Now, university funding has been cut, this is not possible anymore, and unless US$ 250.000 can be provided within the next two weeks OSL will have to shut down. The details can be found in a blog post of Lance Albertson, the director of OSL.
Please, if you value and use Gentoo Linux or any of the other projects that OSL has been supporting, and if you are in a position to make funds available, if this is true for the company you work for, etc … contact the address in the blog post. Obviously, long-term corporate sponsorships would here serve best - for what it’s worth, OSL developers have ended up at almost every big US tech corporation by now. Right now probably everything helps though.
Direct:
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Future of OSL in Jeopardy | OSU Open Source Lab
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.
Unless we secure $250,000 in committed funds, the OSL will shut down later this year. I have reached out to our largest corporate sponsor and they are working to increase their support as we update our contract, but that still may not be enough.
For transparency, the $250,000 is broken down into the following roughly:
Staff pay $150k (60%) (1 staff) Student pay $65k (26%) (8 students) Other expenses $35k (14%)
Other expenses include items such as hardware, travel, subscription services and other miscellaneous expenses needed to run the OSL day to day.
FOSS Force:
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Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Open Source Labs Badly Needs Your Help! - FOSS Force
An essential but little known open source institution has announced that it’s on the ropes. Yesterday Lance Albertson, the director of Open Source Labs, announced in a blog post that OSL needs funds, and it needs them fast.
“Over the past several years, we have been operating at a deficit due to a decline in corporate donations,” Albertson said. “While the Oregon State College of Engineering 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.
How-To Geek:
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Your Favorite Open-Source Project Might Be in Trouble
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.”
LWN:
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Albertson: Future of OSL in Jeopardy
Lance Albertson writes that the Oregon State University Open Source Lab, the home of many prominent free-software projects over the years, has run into financial trouble: [...]
El Reg:
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Oregon State University Open Source Lab is running on fumes
The boss of the OSU OSL, Lance Albertson, reports a critical shortage of funding – putting the future of the 22-year-old project in jeopardy.
In the post, Albertson explained that OSL provides hosting for FOSS projects "from all over the world," listing "notable milestones over the years" as including: [...]
Linuxiac:
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Iconic Open Source Hub Appeals for Lifesaving Donations
The Oregon State University Open Source Lab (OSL), a cornerstone in the global open-source ecosystem for over two decades, now faces an uncertain future due to a critical funding shortfall.
In a heartfelt appeal named “Future of OSL in Jeopardy,” shared by director Lance Albertson, the lab disclosed that it must raise $250,000 in committed funds by mid-May or risk shutting down later this year.
For many in the tech community, the OSL is far more than a university lab. Since founding 22 years ago, the lab has supported over 500 free and open-source projects worldwide.