What is django.contrib?

Since it comes up a lot, I thought I’d spend a bit of time writing up my thoughts on what django.contrib really is, and what including a package in it really means. The following is just my personal opinion – really; that’s why this is posted here instead of over in the official Django documentation. However, most of the core team discussed this topic at length at DjangoCon, so I’m fairly sure there’s consensus over the rough outline.