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OSUOSL Featured Stories

The Oregon State University Open Source Lab is home to many growing, high-impact open source projects. Some of the stories below illustrate exciting projects undertaken by our students, while others are examples of open source projects for which we provide hosting services.

Reciprocity and Gentoo

Reciprocity and Gentoo
2/05/09

It's not an overstatement to say that Gentoo was integral to the Open Source Lab’s foundation. The Linux-based operating system was one of the OSL's first projects – it even preceded the existence of the lab – and was instrumental in building the buzz that put open source at OSU on the map.

It started when Gentoo reached out to the open source community for help – it needed more infrastructure, and OSU provided it. "Web services donated an old Dell server, and from there Gentoo just grew and grew," says Lance Albertson, lead Unix systems administrator at the OSL.

TeachEngineering

TeachEngineering
12/10/09

TeachEngineering is a digital library of over 800 K-12 engineering lessons and hands-on activities. The lesson materials in TeachEngineering are developed by a variety of organizations and programs and are made available free-of-charge to educators.

The Oregon State University Open Source Lab is proud to provide hosting and system administration for the TeachEngineering website and development servers. TeachEngineering has become another great example of the use of open source at OSU.

Energy Sector Open Source Study

Energy Sector Open Source Study
8/11/11

The Energy Sector Security Consortium (EnergySec) and Oregon State University’s Open Source Lab (OSUOSL) have announced that they will partner to perform strategic research on the current use of open source software in the energy sector, especially as it relates to computer security. OSUOSL will perform case studies looking at leading and influential organizations or projects, the tools they use and the challenges these groups have faced in adopting open source software.

The project is designed to provide EnergySec with baseline data on the use of open source software in the energy sector, especially within the area of cybersecurity, and to produce an inventory of the experienced companies and groups in this space. The aim is to build up a significant body of knowledge regarding how and why energy companies and groups participate in open source, both as users and as contributors.

Organizations interested in participating may email Deborah Bryant, OSUOSL Principal Investigator, at energystudy@osuosl.org. More information on the project is available on the study website at http://energystudy.osuosl.org.

A History of Development

A History of Development
2/05/09

During his time at OSL, Josh Schonstal has worked on One Laptop Per Child and recently has been spending his time on TriSano, a tool that will help the Centers for Disease Control monitor outbreaks of infectious disease, environmental hazards, and bioterrorism attacks. TriSano is soon to be deployed in hospitals throughout Utah.

TriSano works like a front end for a database of information, Schonstal says. So when a health professional has a report to make, he or she gets a form that is separated into different concerns. The information is later accessible and editable to anyone with clearance to use the system.

Helping Drupal Grow

Helping Drupal Grow
2/05/09

When Drupal began to outgrow its infrastructure in the summer of 2005, its developers appealed to the open source community for help. OSL offered to host the equipment, and students Eric Searcy and Narayan Newton were put on the case.

"We attacked the problem from two different angles," says Newton, who now works with Tag1 Consulting and is a member of the association that runs Drupal. Searcy, now a systems administrator at InsightsNow in Corvallis, dealt with the scaling of the Web side of Drupal while Newton worked with the database.