The hot new trend in open source .com is .org

Here's an interesting trend.

Over the last few weeks I've written several stories about open source vendors, all of whom have .com sites. And in each case, they own the .org version of their name.

But they are not letting it go to waste.

Instead they are using the .org to serve their communities. Some, like OpenMFG, are using open source software on their .org sites. JasperSoft is taking a slightly different tack, parking the .com version of the name JasperForge (as in Sourceforge) but running JasperForge.org as a community site.

And if I might speculate, this might be the most significant part of the whole trend. If there's a competitor being aimed at, it's Sourceforge (which runs at a .net domain, not a .org). Corporate open source folks are taking the responsibility, cost, and (supposedly) benefits of Sourceforge community-building in-house.

We'll see if that turns out to be a net benefit. I'm guessing not, if only because there is so much cross-pollination between the best projects that they might lose something in isolation.

Have a good weekend.