EUGENE (KMTR) The OSU Open Source Computer Lab has hosted some of the world's largest and most far reaching open source efforts to date.
Open Source basically means that the software is free for anyone to use, change and redistribute as they need. Google is one of the lab's biggest supporters - just last week - the internet giant awarded the program a gift of 300-thousand dollars - bringing the total to 750-thousand dollars.
This computer lab is housed in the Kerr Administration Building on the campus of Oregon State University. Jeff Shelterin – the lab’s Operations Manager says it’s mostly run by students. “We have about a dozen students employed at the lab - they work part time during school and full time during the summer - usually."
In addition to their work with Google - OSU's Open Source Lab has helped develop the Linux foundation's main infrastructure. Shelterin says – that’s not all. “We have a developer working on the Oregon Virtual School District K-12 online learning portal.”
The Apache Web Server and the Drupal Content Management System are among others. Shelterin says, “When Mozilla Firefox was getting started we actually hosted most of their infrastructure - all of their servers here at OSU.”
So whenever a person's computer gives info about a new Firefox update, it comes directly from OSU’s Open Source Lab. It’s more than just a place for computer programmers with more than 200 servers it is the largest university based program of its kind.
The students are involved in a special effort called one lap top per child. “We had a student that ported the word processor onto the laptop - which is intended to be a $100 laptop that they can distribute to emerging countries.” It's designed for children to use and even real networks wants to get involved in the lab's software efforts, to create music players for the new laptops. Real Networks gave the program a half a million dollars to help support that development.
And it's the OSU students who benefit most from the open source lab's important work and collaborative efforts. Shelterin says their students are in very high demand in the computer industry.
