Zack Bartel

Now that my time as a student is over it looks like I am going to have to bid the OSU Open Source Lab goodbye. I have had a fantastic time working with everyone at the OSL but now it is time to move on. I’ve been working at the lab for nine or so months and have enjoyed every minute of it. While at the lab I have gotten the opportunity to work with some brilliant people as well as get an inside look at the biggest open source projects in the world.

I joined the lab in late October of 2005 during my final couple of terms in school. From my first few days at “work” it became obvious that I was around some of the best computer mids in the school (see blogroll!). It seems like I’ve learned something from everyone there. All in all I can honestly say that I will take more away from my experience at the OSL then I will in my whole college experience. I have learned real world skills and had the opportunity to apply those skills to help people. I have also gained real insite into what it means to be an open source project and community and how much benefit comes from such projects.

One of my favorite things about the OSL is the amount of freedom given to the student employees. The students really get a chance to be in control and to show everyone what they can do. Working closely with Mike Clay, Fred Wenzel and Danny Robert on the Maintain Project has really given me a chance to experience working in a real development group where the responsibility and accountability rests squarely on your shoulders. We had the freedom to take the project most anywhere we saw fit and I think that the quality of the project grealy benefited.

The OSL has been growing exponentially for the last couple of years and I really believe that it has no where else to go but up from here. The university and the state have shown support for the OSL and its success should be a good indication that the support will continue into the future. It is a testement to the quality of people at the OSL that projects such as Mozilla, Gentoo, Debian and the Linux Kernel trust them with their infrastrucutre.

Now that I have graduated it seems that I will have to move on. I have accepted a position at Tectura Corporation in Bellevue, Washington as a software engineer. I move up this Sunday and will be sure to blog about the experience.

If all goes well my path will cross with the OSL again in the future in some fashion. I hope to contribute both to the project that I have been working on, Maintain as well as aide the lab and the community in other ways.