The community behind Opensource.com is hard at work on something new. Regular visitors to the site may have noticed a distinct quietness settling over the platform lately. That hush is not a sign of winding down, but rather the opposite: a clear indicator that there is a significant new project in the works behind the scenes. While the organizers note that there are not yet many specific implementation details or rigid timelines to announce publicly, there is already plenty to talk about regarding the philosophy, direction, and future of the platform. And what better way to start a conversation about networks, connectivity, and collaboration than by looking at the very fabric of the entire internet itself?
The Internet, and Top-Level Domains
To understand where the community is heading, it helps to examine where the digital world began. Most internet users know that the internet is fundamentally a network. By definition, a network is a group of interconnected connections—a concept elegantly captured in the portmanteau "internet," which merges "interconnected" and "network."
In its earliest incarnations, the modern internet consisted primarily of two distinct domains: a military network designed for robust, decentralized communication, and an academic network meant for sharing research across institutions. As the technology matured and the internet grew increasingly popular outside those initial specialized groups, it quickly became apparent that different designations were desperately needed. Society required a way to visually and structurally differentiate a commercial entity from a charitable organization, a university from a governmental department, or an individual hobbyist from a multinational enterprise.
These essential designations became known as top-level domains, universally abbreviated as TLDs. Today, internet users can choose from a vast, diverse marketplace of domain extensions, ranging from industry-specific suffixes to geographic identifiers. However, for a remarkably long time, the digital landscape was governed by only a small handful of original TLDs.
Those foundational TLDs remain remarkably popular and deeply ingrained in digital culture. Most web users instinctively understand that when they navigate to a web address ending in the .com suffix, they are visiting a commercial site intended for business and commerce. Conversely, when a user visits an address terminating in a .org extension, they generally expect to encounter a non-profit organization, a public advocacy group, or a community-driven initiative. These suffixes do more than route traffic; they tell a story about the intent, governance, and nature of the organization behind the screen.
Open Source Is a Network
That concept of intent and governance brings the discussion directly to the open source movement. Open source can embody many different things depending on the context, the contributors, and the goals. It can be commercial, driving enterprise software and cloud infrastructure. It can be non-profit, supporting public-interest software and digital rights. It can be academic, fostering foundational research and computer science breakthroughs. It can even be purely cultural, preserving shared knowledge and creative commons works.
Yet, no matter what form open source takes in any given instance, it is always, at its core, a network. Sometimes that network is literal, consisting of millions of computers, servers, and repositories communicating across the globe via open protocols. But most importantly, and most powerfully, it is a network of people.
Whether human beings are gathering physically at an international conference, networking informally at a local pub, or collaborating asynchronously in an online chat room, open source is first and foremost a community of people working together toward shared goals. Technology is the medium, but human collaboration is the engine that drives the entire ecosystem forward.
For the past twelve years, the website Opensource.com has been generously supported and sustained by a commercial entity. Corporate backing has allowed the platform to grow, publish thousands of articles, and serve as a central gathering place for advocates of open source solutions. However, the people—the writers, editors, readers, contributors, and advocates that make up the vibrant Opensource.com community—are not commercial entities. They are individual human beings with a shared passion for open principles, digital freedom, and collaborative creation.
The upcoming project aims to better align the platform’s structure with the true nature of its community. In just one month, Opensource.com is going to resolve that long-standing structural mismatch and enter its next evolutionary phase. Stay tuned for further announcements as the details unfold.
