The community surrounding Opensource.com is hard at work on something new. Visitors to the platform may have noticed that things have been uncharacteristically quiet on the site lately. That quiet period is the result of a new project currently in the works behind the scenes. While organizers note that there are not yet many specific details to announce publicly, there is already plenty to talk about as the platform prepares for its next chapter—and what better way to start a new conversation than by looking at the entire internet and the foundational networks that bring people together?
The Internet, and Top-Level Domains
To understand where the community is heading, it helps to look at where the digital world began. Most people know that the internet is, fundamentally, a network. By definition, a network is a group of interconnected connections. In fact, the very word "internet" is a portmanteau combining "interconnected" and "network."
In its earliest days, the internet consisted of just two primary networks: the military network and the academic network. As the digital landscape expanded and the internet gained popularity outside of those two initial groups, it quickly became apparent that different designations were necessary to help users navigate the growing digital space. Society needed a way to easily differentiate between a commercial entity, a charitable organization, a university, or a governmental department.
These critical designations are known as top-level domains, or TLDs. While there are numerous extensions available across the web today, for a long time there were only a handful. Those original top-level domains remain remarkably popular and culturally ingrained in how we use the web. Most internet users intuitively know that when they navigate to a .com address, they are visiting a commercial site, whereas a .org address signifies that they are visiting a non-profit organization. These suffixes established an early visual and structural shorthand for the intent and nature of the organizations behind the screens.
Open Source Is a Network
Just as the internet relies on interconnection, open source can be many things, yet it always functions as a network. Open-source initiatives can be commercial, non-profit, academic, or cultural. No matter what form an open-source project ultimately takes, its underlying structure is always built on a network of connections.
Sometimes, that network consists of computers exchanging code, data, and packages across servers distributed globally. But more importantly, at its very core, the open-source movement is a network of people. Whether contributors, maintainers, and users are gathering physically at an international conference, meeting informally at a local pub, or collaborating continuously in an online chat room, open source is, above all else, a vibrant community of human beings working toward shared goals.
For the past twelve years, the website Opensource.com has been supported by a commercial entity. That institutional backing provided a stable home for years of articles, tutorials, and community essays celebrating open-source technologies. However, the individuals—representing the readers, writers, advocates, and contributors that make up the diverse Opensource.com community—are not commercial entities. They are people.
Now, the community is preparing to address that structural mismatch and embark on a fresh path. In just one month, Opensource.com is going to resolve that long-standing dynamic, paving the way for a renewed focus centered directly on the people who power the movement. Stay tuned for the upcoming announcement as the next phase of the community unfolds.
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