OSU's Open Source Lab Eyes Infrastructure Upgrades and Sustainability After Recent Funding Success (osuosl.org) 6
It's a nonprofit that's provide hosting for the Linux Foundation, the Apache Software Foundation, Drupal, Firefox, and 160 other projects — delivering nearly 430 terabytes of information every month. (It's currently hosting Debian, Fedora, and Gentoo Linux.) But hosting only provides about 20% of its income, with the rest coming from individual and corporate donors (including Google and IBM). "Over the past several years, we have been operating at a deficit due to a decline in corporate donations," the Open Source Lab's director announced in late April.
It's part of the CS/electrical engineering department at Oregon State University, and while the department "has generously filled this gap, recent changes in university funding makes our current funding model no longer sustainable. Unless we secure $250,000 in committed funds, the OSL will shut down later this year."
But "Thankfully, the call for support worked, paving the way for the OSU Open Source Lab to look ahead, into what the future holds for them," reports the blog It's FOSS.
"Following our OSL Future post, the community response has been incredible!" posted director Lance Albertson. "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:
1. Finding a new, cost-effective physical home for our core infrastructure, ideally with more modern hardware.
2. Securing multi-year funding commitments to cover all our operations, including potential new infrastructure costs and hardware refreshes.
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.
Speaking of hardware, refreshing some of our older gear during a move would be a game-changer. We don't need brand new, but even a few-generations-old refurbished systems would boost performance and efficiency. (Huge thanks to the Yocto Project and Intel for a recent hardware donation that showed just how impactful this is!) The dream? A data center partner donating space and cycled-out hardware. Our overall infrastructure strategy is flexible. We're enhancing our OpenStack/Ceph platforms and exploring public cloud credits and other donated compute capacity. But whatever the resource, it needs to fit our goals and come with multi-year commitments for stability. And, a physical space still offers unique value, especially the invaluable hands-on data center experience for our students....
[O]ur big focus this next year is locking in ongoing support — think annualized pledges, different kinds of regular income, and other recurring help. This is vital, especially with potential new data center costs and hardware needs. Getting this right means we can stop worrying about short-term funding and plan for the future: investing in our tech and people, growing our awesome student programs, and serving the FOSS community. We're looking for partners, big and small, who get why foundational open source infrastructure matters and want to help us build this sustainable future together.
The It's FOSS blog adds that "With these prerequisites in place, the OSUOSL intends to expand their student program, strengthen their managed services portfolio for open source projects, introduce modern tooling like Kubernetes and Terraform, and encourage more community volunteers to actively contribute."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader I'm just joshin for suggesting the story.
It's part of the CS/electrical engineering department at Oregon State University, and while the department "has generously filled this gap, recent changes in university funding makes our current funding model no longer sustainable. Unless we secure $250,000 in committed funds, the OSL will shut down later this year."
But "Thankfully, the call for support worked, paving the way for the OSU Open Source Lab to look ahead, into what the future holds for them," reports the blog It's FOSS.
"Following our OSL Future post, the community response has been incredible!" posted director Lance Albertson. "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:
1. Finding a new, cost-effective physical home for our core infrastructure, ideally with more modern hardware.
2. Securing multi-year funding commitments to cover all our operations, including potential new infrastructure costs and hardware refreshes.
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.
Speaking of hardware, refreshing some of our older gear during a move would be a game-changer. We don't need brand new, but even a few-generations-old refurbished systems would boost performance and efficiency. (Huge thanks to the Yocto Project and Intel for a recent hardware donation that showed just how impactful this is!) The dream? A data center partner donating space and cycled-out hardware. Our overall infrastructure strategy is flexible. We're enhancing our OpenStack/Ceph platforms and exploring public cloud credits and other donated compute capacity. But whatever the resource, it needs to fit our goals and come with multi-year commitments for stability. And, a physical space still offers unique value, especially the invaluable hands-on data center experience for our students....
[O]ur big focus this next year is locking in ongoing support — think annualized pledges, different kinds of regular income, and other recurring help. This is vital, especially with potential new data center costs and hardware needs. Getting this right means we can stop worrying about short-term funding and plan for the future: investing in our tech and people, growing our awesome student programs, and serving the FOSS community. We're looking for partners, big and small, who get why foundational open source infrastructure matters and want to help us build this sustainable future together.
The It's FOSS blog adds that "With these prerequisites in place, the OSUOSL intends to expand their student program, strengthen their managed services portfolio for open source projects, introduce modern tooling like Kubernetes and Terraform, and encourage more community volunteers to actively contribute."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader I'm just joshin for suggesting the story.
Day drinking comment (Score:1)
I got a mess of Raspberry Pis, I can host them in my basement for twenny-seven bucks a month if they take over my Comcast bill. It's unlimited data the salesman told me. Anyway these Karbach IPAs really are great, I think I'm going to have another. Ha, that's funny, I already have an open one in my other hand. Oh well, double fist that shit like in college!
OSU? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
There are multiple reasons why it's beneficial to reduce headline length when possible. TFS explains which OSU they are talking about in the second paragraph. Ideally, this would have been done in the first. Nothing wrong with the headline; as a computer nerd, Oregon State is a natural first candidate when thinking about "OSU".
Re: (Score:2)
Two things (Score:2)
I am all for funding open source initiatives, and Oregon State has a great reputation in this area. Private entities that have been helped by them should consider donating.
But also, a friendly reminder that the university currently holds a $896 million endowment as of the 2024 fiscal year.
Re: (Score:2)
I am all for funding open source initiatives, and Oregon State has a great reputation in this area. Private entities that have been helped by them should consider donating.
Some, apparently, have been, but others, as they grew out of their initial startup OSUOSL days, may have reduced their contributions.
But also, a friendly reminder that the university currently holds a $896 million endowment as of the 2024 fiscal year.
As with many endowments at most institutes of higher education, some of the funds have specific usage requirements (so an endowment supporting a faculty position cannot be used for anything else other than funding that position), and are not available for general use, so the total value can be misleading.
The more important question is whether OSUOSL is the best recipient of av