commons

What kind of commons is free software?

M. S. Vieira, What kind of commons is free software?, Proceedings of the 6th Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon 2011). Berlin, Germany, 2011.


Introduction

This paper tries to shed light into an ongoing discussion regarding free software and commons theory: is free software an open access or a managed commons?

While the freedoms granted by free software licenses suggest that it is open access, empirical studies of free software communities also suggest that they are far from anarchical, and that collaboration in those communities follows certain patterns, principles and norms - which obviously suggests that they are managed, rather than open access.


Commons

Taxonomy upgrade extras: