.oss
Is .oss a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.oss is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. It is DotMonk Pvt. Ltd.. OpenClaw Foundation named .oss as a backup string for its .claw application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup.
A clear label for open-source projects, but developers already default to .org, .io and .dev, so demand stays modest.
open-source maintainers, developer-tool startups and software foundations who want a short project address that reads as "open source" on sight; secondarily telecom operations-support and cloud object-storage vendors who use the same acronym
Named on the ICANN gTLD application list, 7 October 2026 as a replacement (backup) string of the applicant's .claw application, shown as deactivated: another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup
The 2012 applications making the most similar bet. Chosen by AI from every string in that round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet and same buyer: a short, unowned piece of developer insider shorthand that software projects and engineers would put their primary identity on, winning or losing on whether a technical audience adopts a namespace that means nothing outside it.
Also an ethos-as-identity string rather than a product category — it asks people to label themselves by a shared value of openness rather than by what they sell — though as a bare adjective it is broader and more commercially exploitable than a movement's own acronym.
The closest structural twin: a three-letter acronym that a self-consciously non-commercial sector uses for itself, where the string's value comes from membership and credibility in a community rather than from keyword demand, and which only works if that community treats the label as an honest badge.
What a .oss domain is
.oss is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under AI & tech. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .oss domain extension real yet?
.oss is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. It is a string applicants have put forward in the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, the process that decides whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .oss domain?
You can’t yet. ICANN publishes every applied-for string on Reveal Day, 7 October 2026 at 18:00 UTC. A .oss name can only be registered after that, once the string is delegated and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .oss was .dev, delegated on 18 December 2014.
Is .oss a real TLD?
Not yet. .oss is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .oss is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Band chosen: 30-49, usable but limited. The string reads instantly as 'open source software' to its best-fit buyer, which is a real, large and identity-conscious community, and it is short, so registrations at volume are plausible if retail pricing is accessible. It is not in the 50-69 band because the primary-identity habit of that community is already settled on incumbents: by analogy, .org remains the credibility default for foundations and mature projects, .io became the startup/developer convention, and .dev (a registry-backed developer namespace) absorbed much of the newer developer-identity demand; a project choosing name.oss would mostly do so as a secondary or vanity address, and the acronym is shared with unrelated meanings (telecom operations-support systems, cloud object storage), which dilutes the brand signal. It is not in the 10-29 band because, unlike joke or event-driven strings, the term names a durable category with ongoing new-project formation, so demand is not shallow or one-off. By analogy with other developer-adjacent descriptive TLDs (.software, .codes, .foo), outcomes have tended to be steady but small, with thin aftermarkets, which fits this band. On the record the surviving application is from DotMonk Pvt. Ltd. under the Applicant Support Program (applicant facts stated neutrally); a second application by OpenClaw Foundation, filed as a replacement string for .claw, is deactivated. Contention count on the record is 1. Nothing in the verified facts describes the intended pricing, registrar distribution or launch positioning, so those are unknown. Main market uncertainty: whether the developer community comes to treat .oss as a credibility marker (as happened with .dev, inferred by analogy) or as a budget extension, which depends on pricing, registrar distribution and early anchor adopters that are unknown here.