This paper is the written version of an invited talk at the 16th Bled Electronic Conference, Slovenija, June 2003. The text focuses on 2 critical issues for open information communities: how lowering transactions costs linked to becoming an active contributor is an essential factor for their success; and how free (as in freedom) licenses enable new forms of relationships between the individual and the collective. I bring some evidence that this permits to overcome some of the traditional limitations of commons in the physical world. The analysis uses as examples the free Wiki-based encyclopedia Wikipedia and the peer-reviewed free encyclopedia Nupedia, the Slashdot technical news community (commercial), and Web sites using the SPIP free co-operative publishing software.
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