In 2005, a Public Sector Program was established within the Oregon State University Open Source Lab to educate and share information among governmental organizations and other public sector institutions. While many highly technical events exist for developers, system administrators and other technical staff, no adequate source of information or event existed that was designed for information technology management and the staff they rely on to evaluate, plan, resource and oversee implementation of enterprise-class technology solutions. Our Public Sector Program includes two main initiatives:

The Government Open Source Conference (GOSCON)

The non-profit GOSCON conference was established in October of 2005 as a platform for education, information and collaboration for government information technology managers looking to use open source software to meet their agencies' missions. You can learn more on our GOSCON information page.

Open Source Software Agency Use Cases

In partnership with Open Source for America, the OSL has launched a program to collect and share case studies, lessons learned and best practices among government agencies using open source software. You can learn more, including how to participate in these case studies, on our Agency Use Cases information page.