[mburns]

The OSL was transformative for my career as a budding CS student in Corvallis many years ago. I can’t say enough good things about the positive impact it has on the Open Source community and the students it employs.

In my experience, there isn’t a great on-ramp for learning to be a SysAdmin (or devop, etc) in a practical sense. Learning what it takes to support systems in “Production” with actual users, and all that entails, at some point requires a hands-on approach. Finding entry-level opportunities to do that isn’t easy until you have /some/ experience. The OSL provides that, and supports countless FOSS projects in the process. It’s really a great arrangement.

Obviously I’m biased, but the Open Source Lab should be viewed as one of the Crown Jewels of OSU.