IBM, Google and Real Networks among lab’s industry donors

Source: Jeff Sheltren, 541-713-3206

Media contact: Todd Simmons, 541-737-4611

CORVALLIS, Ore. - The Oregon State University Open Source Lab, home to growing open source communities, today announced the OSL Alliance™ corporate sponsorship program. The OSL Alliance enables commercial vendors to financially support the expansion of computing infrastructure and services that OSL provides to open source projects worldwide. Among its donors, Google and Real Networks have contributed $1.25 million to date.

The Open Source Lab has provided world-class hosting and custom development for many of the world’s largest and most far-reaching open source efforts, including the Mozilla Firefox browser, the Linux Foundation’s main infrastructure, the Apache Software Foundation and the Drupal™ content management system.

“We’re grateful for the generous support of our Alliance partners,” said Curt Pederson, vice provost for Information Services at OSU and chief information officer for the Oregon University System. “Their sponsorship not only enables the Open Source Lab to be self-sufficient, but allows our staff and students to extend OSL’s services to the next generation of high-impact open source projects.”

The OSL Alliance is a tiered sponsorship program offering corporate partners escalating benefits at each level of cash or in-kind contribution to the Lab. While the entry-level “bronze” membership starts at $10,000 per year, platinum sponsors at the $100,000 tier receive a customizable package of benefits that may include hosting services for designated open source projects, dedicated development resources or even named internships. For more information on the OSL Alliance program, visit osuosl.org/alliance.

“The Open Source Lab provides essential hosting services and infrastructure for the Linux Foundation and many other critical open source initiatives,” said Dan Frye, vice president of Open Systems at IBM. “The OSL’s support is important not just to IBM, but to the industry and open source communities worldwide.”

“OSL developers played a key role in bringing our Helix™ multimedia player to the One Laptop Per Child system,” noted Martin Schwartz, AVP for Digital Entertainment Products at RealNetworks. “We’re excited to partner with the Lab in fostering the development of open source content creation tools and media players.”

“Oregon State University is a trusted resource for the global open source community, including a wide range of projects supported by Google,” said Chris DiBona, Google’s Open Source Programs manager. “We’re pleased to assist the work of the Open Source Lab.”

In addition to the OSL Alliance announced today, the Open Source Lab also unveiled the Friends of OSL™ donation program for individuals and small organizations. Designed for open source community enthusiasts desiring to support the work of the Open Source Lab, the Friends of OSL membership starts at $25 per year. At each membership level, donors receive benefits ranging from t-shirts and recognition on the OSL web site and in collateral materials to passes to the annual GOSCON conference.

For more details, visit osuosl.org/friends.

About the OSU Open Source Lab

The Oregon State University Open Source Lab is the home of growing, high-impact open source communities. Its world-class hosting services enable the Linux operating system, Apache web server, the Drupal content management system and over 50 other leading open source software projects to collaborate with contributors and distribute software to millions of users globally. Through custom software development, vendor partnerships and industry events like the Government Open Source Conference (GOSCON), the Lab’s staff and students encourage open source adoption in education, government, health care and other sectors. For more information, visit osuosl.org

OSL Alliance and Friends of OSL are trademarks of Oregon State University. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. Drupal is a trademark of Dries Buytaert. Other company and project names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies and projects.