What Is Opensource.com and What Kind of Content Does It Publish?

Updated

Opensource.com is a community-oriented publication that covers open source tools, development practices, community organizing, and open culture. It publishes articles, tutorials, case studies, and opinion pieces written by a range of contributors and correspondents, updated continuously with dated posts. It is a place to read about how people use and build with open source—not a software download site or a vendor product page.

What the site is for

The site positions itself around the open source community and its practices. Its home page highlights "new developments" and a rotating set of featured stories, which suggests an editorial, magazine-style format rather than a documentation repository. Content is organized by topic and by author, and posts carry publication dates, so readers can follow what is current.

Content formats you will find

Based on the articles visible on the home page, the site publishes several recurring formats:

  • Tutorials and how-tos — step-by-step guides such as testing a Drupal website with Cypress, or generating web pages from Markdown with Docsify-This.
  • Tool and release overviews — walkthroughs of new software, such as what's new in GNOME 44.
  • Case studies and experience reports — accounts of running projects or events, such as running a virtual conference using only open source tools.
  • Opinion and analysis — perspective pieces, such as the challenges open source faces in developing countries or using guilt as a motivator.
  • Community and collaboration advice — guidance on working with others, such as helping UX designers and developers collaborate better, or hosting a docathon for documentation.

Topics covered

The home page shows a broad range of subjects rather than a single niche:

Topic area Example from the site
Databases and architecture A distributed database load-balancing architecture with ShardingSphere
AI and creative tools Editing photos with open source artificial intelligence
Virtualization Why virtual machines still matter
Web development Converting Markdown to web pages with Docsify-This
Testing Testing a Drupal website with Cypress
Desktop Linux What's new in GNOME 44
Programming Learning Tcl/Tk and Wish through a simple game; retrying Python code with Tenacity and Mock
Events Tips for running virtual, in-person, and hybrid events
Community Open source challenges in developing countries; docathons

There is also a "Find the perfect open source tool" entry point that points readers toward popular projects in areas like project management, business intelligence, and reporting.

Who writes it

Articles are attributed to named authors and correspondents—for example, Don Watkins, Jim Hall, Moshe Zadka, and Máirín Duffy appear as bylines on the home page. This mix of staff correspondents and guest contributors is consistent with a community publication model, where practitioners share firsthand experience rather than a single editorial voice.

How to use the site

If you want practical guidance, start with the tutorial-style posts and follow the bylines of authors whose work matches your interests. If you are tracking a specific tool or release, the dated posts let you check how recent the coverage is. If you are looking for a tool to adopt, the "Find the perfect open source tool" section is the natural entry point. Because the site is editorial rather than a product catalog, treat individual articles as experience reports and verify version-specific details against the project's own documentation.