The community built around Opensource.com is hard at work on something new. Readers who have visited the site recently may have noticed a distinct quietness settling over the platform. That noticeable pause is due to an exciting new project currently in the works behind the scenes. While organizers and contributors note that there are not yet many specific details to publicly announce, there is already plenty to talk about as the platform prepares for its next evolution. What better way to start a conversation about community, connection, and technology than by looking at the very fabric of the internet itself?
The internet, and top-level domains
To understand where the Opensource.com community is heading and why this upcoming transition matters, it helps to look back at how the digital world was constructed. Most people know that the internet is, fundamentally, a network. By definition, a network is a group of interconnected connections. In fact, the word "internet" is a portmanteau combining "interconnected" and "network."
In its earliest days, the internet was a smaller, more specialized system consisting primarily of two main networks: the military network and the academic network. These foundational spaces served specific institutional purposes and connected a relatively small cohort of researchers, engineers, and defense personnel. However, once the internet began to catch on and grow popular far beyond those two initial groups, it quickly became apparent that different designations were urgently needed.
As the digital landscape expanded to include commercial enterprises, charitable organizations, universities, and government departments, a way to categorize these diverse entities became essential. These structural designations are known as top-level domains, commonly referred to as TLDs. While there are countless top-level domains available today—ranging from regional suffixes to industry-specific extensions—for a long time, there were only a handful.
The original TLDs remain remarkably popular and culturally embedded in how we navigate the web today. Most internet users know instinctively that when they visit an address ending in .com, they are interacting with a commercial site, whereas a visit to a .org address typically points toward a non-profit organization or public-interest entity. These suffixes serve as digital neighborhood markers, signaling the intent and nature of the organization behind the screen.
Open source is a network
Just as the internet relies on a web of interconnected connections, open source can be many things, but at its core, it is always a network. Open source projects can take on commercial models, operate as non-profits, function within academic institutions, or drive cultural movements. No matter what form an open-source initiative ultimately takes, it invariably operates as a network.
Sometimes, this is a literal network of computers sharing code, infrastructure, and distributed databases. Most importantly, however, it is a network of people. Whether contributors, users, and maintainers are gathering in person at a bustling global conference, meeting informally at a local pub, or collaborating asynchronously in an online chat room, the open-source movement is, above all else, a community of human beings working toward shared goals.
For the past twelve years, the website Opensource.com has been supported by a commercial entity, providing a steady platform for the dissemination of ideas, stories, and advocacy surrounding open-source technologies. Yet, the people—the individuals like you and me—who truly make up the Opensource.com community are not commercial entities. We are people, driven by curiosity, collaboration, and a shared belief in the value of open creation.
The upcoming transition represents a significant moment for that human network. In one month, Opensource.com is going to resolve that long-standing bug and step into its next phase. Stay tuned for further developments as the community shares more about what is next on the horizon.
