The vibrant community behind Opensource.com is hard at work on something entirely new. Visitors to the platform may have recently noticed a noticeable quietness across the site’s normally bustling publishing schedule. That temporary lull is due to an ambitious new project currently in the works. While specific, granular details regarding the exact nature of this upcoming venture are not yet ready for public announcement, there is already plenty to discuss about the foundational philosophy driving it. And what better way to begin exploring a major shift in connectivity and collaboration than by looking at the entire internet itself?
The internet, and top-level domains
To understand where the community is heading, it helps to examine where the digital landscape originated. Most internet users know that the internet is, fundamentally, a network. A network, by definition, is simply a group of connections working in tandem. In fact, the term "internet" is a portmanteau combining the concepts of "interconnected" and "network." Historically speaking, the internet began as a network of interconnected networks, originally consisting of just two primary pillars: a secure military network and a collaborative academic network.
As the digital age progressed and the internet grew in popularity far beyond those two initial groups, it quickly became apparent that different designations were desperately needed. Navigating a rapidly expanding digital space required a way to easily differentiate between a commercial entity, a charitable organization, a university, or a governmental department.
These crucial designations ultimately became known as top-level domains, commonly abbreviated as TLDs. Today, there are countless domain extensions available for registration, catering to every conceivable niche, region, and industry. However, for a long time, there were only a handful available to the public. Those original TLDs remain remarkably popular and culturally significant to this day. Most internet users intuitively understand that when navigating to an address ending in .com, they are visiting a commercial site, whereas visiting a .org address signifies a journey to a non-profit website or public interest organization. These suffixes serve as digital signposts, instantly communicating the underlying purpose and structure of the entity behind the screen.
Open source is a network
Just as the internet relies on a vast web of interconnected systems, open source can represent many different things depending on the context. Open source can be commercial in nature, it can operate as a non-profit, it can thrive in academic institutions, or it can manifest as a cultural movement. Regardless of the specific form it takes, however, open source is always, at its core, a network.
Sometimes that network consists of computers, servers, repositories, and lines of code shared across continents. Most importantly, however, it is a network of people. Whether those individuals are gathering in person at a massive international conference, chatting casually over drinks at a local pub, or collaborating asynchronously in an online chat room, open source is essentially a community of living, breathing human beings working toward shared goals.
For the past twelve years, the website Opensource.com has been supported by a commercial entity, providing a dedicated platform for discussing the creation, adoption, and sharing of open source solutions. Yet, the people who actually make up the heart and soul of the Opensource.com community—the writers, editors, advocates, contributors, and readers—are not commercial entities. They are individuals. They are people bound together by a shared passion for collaboration, transparency, and the open-source way of life.
The upcoming project aims to better align the platform with the human-centric nature of the movement it represents. In just one month, Opensource.com is set to resolve that operational and structural gap. Community members, contributors, and followers are encouraged to stay tuned for further announcements as the launch date approaches. Opensource.com continues to publish stories about creating, adopting, and sharing open source solutions, and supporters can follow the latest updates and announcements on Twitter via @opensourceway.
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