Commons based peer production
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Commons-based peer production (CBPP) is a term coined by
Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...
professor
Yochai Benkler Yochai Benkler (; born 1964) is an Israeli-American author and the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School. He is also a faculty co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Universi ...
. It describes a model of
socio-economic Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their local ...
production in which large numbers of people work cooperatively; usually over the Internet. Commons-based projects generally have less rigid hierarchical structures than those under more traditional business models. One of the major characteristics of the commons-based peer production is its non-profit scope. Often—but not always—commons-based projects are designed without a need for financial compensation for contributors. For example, sharing of STL (file format) design files for objects freely on the internet enables anyone with a
3-D printer 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer co ...
to digitally replicate the object saving the
prosumer A prosumer is an individual who both consumes and produces. The term is a portmanteau of the words '' producer'' and ''consumer''. Research has identified six types of prosumers: DIY prosumers, self-service prosumers, customizing prosumers, coll ...
significant money. Synonymous terms for this process include consumer coproduction and collaborative media production.


Overview

Benkler contrasts commons-based peer production with firm production, in which tasks are delegated based on a central
decision-making In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the Cognition, cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be ...
process, and market-based production, in which allocating different prices to different tasks serves as an incentive to anyone interested in performing a task. Benkler first introduced the term in his 2002 paper "Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm",''Coase's Penguin or Linux and The nature of the firm'' 112 YALE L.J. 369 (2002)
PDF
.
whose title refers to the
Linux mascot Tux is a penguin character and the official brand character of the Linux kernel. Originally created as an entry to a Linux logo competition, Tux is the most commonly used icon for Linux, although different Comparison of Linux distributions, Linu ...
and to Ronald Coase, who originated the transaction costs theory of the firm that provides the methodological template for the paper's analysis of peer production. The paper cites Eben Moglen as the originator of the concept. In his book The Wealth of Networks (2006), Benkler significantly expands on his definition of commons-based peer production. According to Benkler, what distinguishes commons-based production is that it doesn't rely upon or propagate proprietary knowledge: "The inputs and outputs of the process are shared, freely or conditionally, in an institutional form that leaves them equally available for all to use as they choose at their individual discretion." To ensure that the knowledge generated is available for free use, commons-based projects are often shared under an
open license A free license or open license is a license which allows others to reuse another creator’s work as they wish. Without a special license, these uses are normally prohibited by copyright, patent or commercial license. Most free licenses are ...
. Not all commons-based production necessarily qualifies as commons-based peer production. According to Benkler, peer production is defined not only by the openness of its outputs, but also by a decentralized, participant-driven working method of working. Peer production enterprises have two primary advantages over traditional hierarchical approaches to production: #
Information gain Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, ...
: Peer production allows individuals to self-assign tasks that suit their own skills, expertise, and interests. Contributors can generate dynamic content that reflects the individual skills and the "variability of human creativity." # Great variability of human and information resources leads to substantial increasing returns to scale to the number of people, and resources and projects that may be accomplished without need for a contract or other factor permitting the proper use of the resource for a project. In ''
Wikinomics ''Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything'' is a book by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, first published in December 2006. It explores how some companies in the early 21st century have used mass collaboration and open-source ...
'',
Don Tapscott Don Tapscott (born June 1, 1947) is a Canadian business executive, author, consultant and speaker, who specializes in business strategy, organizational transformation and the role of technology in business and society. He is the CEO of the Tapsco ...
and Anthony D. Williams suggest an incentive mechanism behind common-based peer production. "People participate in peer production communities," they write, "for a wide range of intrinsic and self-interested reasons....basically, people who participate in peer production communities love it. They feel passionate about their particular area of expertise and revel in creating something new or better." Aaron Krowne offers another definition:
commons-based peer production refers to any coordinated, (chiefly) internet-based effort whereby volunteers contribute project components, and there exists some process to combine them to produce a unified intellectual work. CBPP covers many different types of intellectual output, from software to libraries of quantitative data to human-readable documents (manuals, books, encyclopedias, reviews, blogs, periodicals, and more).


Principles

First, the potential goals of peer production must be modular. In other words, objectives must be divisible into components, or modules, each of which can be independently produced. That allows participants to work asynchronously, without having to wait for each other's contributions or coordinate with each other in person. Second, the granularity of the modules is essential. Granularity refers to the degree to which objects are broken down into smaller pieces (module size). Different levels of granularity will allow people with different levels of motivation to work together by contributing small or large grained modules, consistent with their level of interest in the project and their motivation. Third, a successful peer-production enterprise must have low-cost
integration Integration may refer to: Biology *Multisensory integration *Path integration * Pre-integration complex, viral genetic material used to insert a viral genome into a host genome *DNA integration, by means of site-specific recombinase technology, ...
—the mechanism by which the modules are integrated into a whole end product. Thus, integration must include both quality controls over the modules and a mechanism for integrating the contributions into the finished product at relatively low cost.


Participation

Participation in commons-based peer production is often voluntary and not necessarily associated with getting profit out of it. Thus, the motivation behind this phenomenon goes far beyond traditional capitalistic theories, which picture individuals as self-interested and rational agents, such portrayal is also called homo economicus. However, it can be explained through alternative theories as
behavioral economics Behavioral economics studies the effects of psychological, cognitive, emotional, cultural and social factors on the decisions of individuals or institutions, such as how those decisions vary from those implied by classical economic theory. ...
. Famous psychologist Dan Ariely in his work
Predictably Irrational ''Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions'' is a 2008 book by Dan Ariely, in which he challenges readers' assumptions about making decisions based on rational thought. Ariely explains, "My goal, by the end of this book, ...
explains that social norms shape people's decisions as much as market norms. Therefore, individuals tend to be willing to create value because of their social constructs, knowing that they won't be paid for that. He draws an example of a thanksgiving dinner: offering to pay would likely offend the family member who prepared the dinner as they were motivated by the pleasure of treating family members. Similarly, commons-based projects, as claimed by
Yochai Benkler Yochai Benkler (; born 1964) is an Israeli-American author and the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School. He is also a faculty co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Universi ...
, are the results of individuals acting "out of social and psychological motivations to do something interesting". He goes on describing the wide range of reasons as pleasure, socially and psychologically rewarding experiences, to the economic calculation of possible monetary rewards (not necessarily from the project itself). On the other hand, the need for collaboration and interaction lies at the very core of human nature and turns out to be a very essential feature for one's survival. Enhanced with digital technologies, allowing easier and faster collaboration which was not as noticeable before, it resulted in a new social, cultural and economic trend named collaborative society. This theory outlines further reasons for individuals to participate in peer production such as collaboration with strangers, building or integrating into a community or contributing to a general good.


Examples

Examples of projects using commons-based peer production include: * Linux, a computer operating system kernel * GNU, a computer operating system generally used in conjunction with the kernel Linux * LibreOffice, an office suite for computer desktops, mobiles and cloud collaboration * Slashdot, a news and announcements website * Wikipedia, an open-collaborative online encyclopedia * Distributed Proofreaders, which proof reads public domain e-texts for publication on Project Gutenberg * SETI@home, a volunteer computational project which searches for extra terrestrial life * Kuro5hin, a discussion site for technology and culture * Clickworkers, a
citizen science Citizen science (CS) (similar to community science, crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, participatory monitoring, or volunteer monitoring) is scientific research conducted with participation from the public (who are sometimes re ...
program * SourceForge, a software development organization *
Sensorica Sensorica is an open value network (OVN), established in 2011 in Montreal, Canada, for open source hardware development. It is a pilot project for commons-based peer production applied to hardware, designed to operate at large scale. It was establ ...
, a hardware development network-organization using the open value network model. *
RepRap Project The RepRap project started in England in 2005 as a University of Bath initiative to develop a low-cost 3D printer that can print most of its own components, but it is now made up of hundreds of collaborators worldwide. RepRap is short for rep''lic ...
, a project to create an open-source self-copying 3D printer. *
Pirate Bay The Pirate Bay (sometimes abbreviated as TPB) is an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay allows visitors to search, download, and contribute mag ...
, a shared index of bittorrents (under legal scrutiny in Sweden as of February 2009) *
OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free, open geographic database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveys, trace from aerial imagery and also import from other freely licensed g ...
, a collaborative free map of the world. * Wikiprogress, a project for collecting information and data on measuring the progress of societies. *
Ushahidi Ushahidi is an open source software application which utilises user-generated reports to collate and map data. It uses the concept of crowdsourcing serving as an initial model for what has been coined as "activist mapping" - the combination o ...
, activist mapping. *
Open Source Ecology Open Source Ecology (OSE) is a network of farmers, engineers, architects and supporters, whose main goal is the eventual manufacturing of the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS). As described by Open Source Ecology "the GVCS is an open techn ...
, a project for designing and building open source industrial machines, fabricated by
eXtreme Manufacturing eXtreme Manufacturing (XM) is an iterative and incremental framework for manufacturing improvement and new product development that was inspired by the software development methodology Scrum (development), Scrum and the systematic waste-eliminati ...
. *
GROWL Growling is a low, guttural vocalization produced by predatory animals; producing ''growls''. Growling or growl may also refer to: Sounds * Death growl, the dominant singing style in death metal music * Stomach growl, or borborygmus, noise prod ...
, a
degrowth Degrowth (french: décroissance) is a term used for both a political, economic, and social movement as well as a set of theories that critique the paradigm of economic growth. It can be described as an extensive framework that is based on crit ...
education network producing open materials and curricula. * Community Garden, where people work together to grow things and then share the fruits of their labor. * Firefox, a free and open source web browser.


Outgrowths

Several outgrowths have been: * Customization/Specialization: With
free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
small groups have the capability to customize a large project according to specific needs. With the rise of low-cost
3-D printing 3-D, 3D, or 3d may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Relating to three-dimensionality * Three-dimensional space ** 3D computer graphics, computer graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data ** 3D film, a ...
, and other digital manufacturing techniques this is now also becoming true of open source hardware. * Longevity: Once code is released under a copyleft free software license it is almost impossible to make it unavailable to the public. * Cross-fertilization: Experts in a field can work on more than one project with no legal hassles. * Technology Revisions: A core technology gives rise to new implementations of existing projects. * Technology Clustering: Groups of products tend to cluster around a core set of technology and integrate with one another.


Related concepts

Interrelated concepts to Commons-based peer production are the processes of peer governance and peer property. To begin with, peer governance is a new mode of governance and bottom-up mode of
participative decision-making Participative decision-making (PDM) is the extent to which employers allow or encourage employees to share or participate in organizational decision-making. According to Cotton et al., the format of PDM could be formal or informal. In addition, t ...
that is being experimented in peer projects, such as Wikipedia and
FLOSS Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
; thus peer governance is the way that peer production, the process in which common value is produced, is managed. Peer Property indicates the innovative nature of legal forms such as the General Public License, the Creative Commons, etc. Whereas traditional forms of property are exclusionary ("if it is mine, it is not yours"), peer property forms are inclusionary. It is from all of us, i.e. also for you, provided you respect the basic rules laid out in the license, such as the openness of the source code for example. The ease of entering and leaving an organization is a feature of adhocracies. The principle of commons-based peer production is similar to collective invention, a model of open innovation in economics coined by Robert Allen. Also related:
Open-source economics Open-source economics is an economic platform based on open collaboration for the production of software, services, or other products. First applied to the open-source software industry, this economic model may be applied to a wide range of ent ...
and
Commercial use of copyleft works The commercialization of copylefted works differs from proprietary works. The economic focus tends to be on the commercialization of other scarcities, and complimentary goods rather than the free works themselves. One way to make money with copylef ...
.


Criticism

Some believe that the commons-based peer production (CBPP) vision, while powerful and groundbreaking, needs to be strengthened at its root because of some allegedly wrong assumptions concerning
free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
(FOSS). The CBPP literature regularly and explicitly quotes FOSS products as examples of artifacts "emerging" by virtue of mere cooperation, with no need for supervising leadership (without "market signals or managerial commands", in Benkler's words). It can be argued, however, that in the development of any less than trivial piece of software, irrespective of whether it be FOSS or proprietary, a subset of the (many) participants always play—explicitly and deliberately—the role of leading system and subsystem designers, determining architecture and functionality, while most of the people work “underneath” them in a logical, functional sense. From a micro-level, Bauwens and Pantazis are of the view that CBPP models should be considered a prototype, since it cannot reproduce itself fully outside of the limits that capitalism has imposed on it as a result of the interdependence of CBPP with capitalist competition. The innovative activities of CBPP occur within capitalist competitive contexts, and capitalist firms can gain competitive advantage over firms that rely on personal research without proprietary knowledge, because the former is able to utilize and access the knowledge commons, especially in digital commons where participants in CBPP struggle to earn direct livelihood for themselves. CBPP is then at the risk of being subordinated.


Alternative to capitalism

Commons-based peer production (CBPP) represents an alternative form of production from traditional capitalism. Nevertheless, to this day CBPP is still a prototype of a new way of producing, it cannot be called a complete form of production by itself. CBPP is embedded in the capitalist system and even though the processes and forms of production differ it is still mutually dependent to capital. If CBPP triumphs in its implementation the market and state will not disappear, but their relationship with the means of production will be modified. A socio-economic shift pursued by CBPP will not be straightforward or lead to a utopia, it could help solve some current issues. As any economic transition, new problems will emerge and the transition will be complicated. But, moving towards a CBPP production model will be ideal, a step forward for society. CBPP is still a prototype of what a new way of production and society would look like, and can't separate itself completely from capitalism: commoners should find innovative ways to become more autonomous from capitalism. In a society led by commons the market would continue to exist as in capitalism, but would shift from being mainly extractive to being predominantly generative. Both scenarios, the extractive as well as the generative, can include elements which are based on peer-to-peer (P2P) dynamics, or social peer-to-peer processes. Therefore, one should not only discuss peer production as an opposing alternative to current forms of market organization, but also needs to discuss how both manifest in the organizations of today’s economy. Four scenarios can be described along the lines of profit maximization and commons on one side, and centralized and decentralized control over digital production infrastructure, such as for example networking technologies: netarchical capitalism, distributed capitalism, global commons, and localized commons. Each of them uses P2P elements to a different extent and thus leads to different outcomes: * Netarchical capitalism: In this version of capitalism, P2P elements are mainly found in digital platforms, through which individuals can interact with each other. These platforms are controlled by the platform owners, which capture the value of the P2P exchanges. * Distributed capitalism: As compared to the first type, platforms are not centrally controlled in this form of capitalism, and individual autonomy and large-scale participation play an important role. However, it is still a form a capitalism, meaning it is mainly extractive, and profit maximization is the main motive. * Global commons: This scenario is generative as it aims to add social and environmental value. It uses the digital commons to organize and deploy initiatives globally. * Local commons: Similar to the global commons, the local commons are also a generative scenario. However, they use global digital commons to organize activities locally, for example by using global designs to at the same time as local supply chains for manufacturing.


See also

*
Anti-rival good “Anti-rival good” is a neologism suggested by Steven Weber (professor), Steven Weber. According to his definition, it is the opposite of a rival good. The more people share an anti-rival good, the more utility each person receives. Examples inc ...
*
Carr–Benkler wager The Carr–Benkler wager between Yochai Benkler and Nicholas Carr concerned the question whether the most influential sites on the Internet will be peer-produced or price-incentivized systems. History The wager was proposed by Benkler in July 20 ...
* Co-creation * ''
Cognitive Surplus ''Cognitive Surplus: How Technology Makes Consumers into Collaborators'' is a 2010 non-fiction book by Clay Shirky, originally published in with the subtitle "Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age". The book is an indirect sequel to Shirky ...
'' – a book *
Collaboration Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. Most ...
*
Collaborative software development model Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, Computer programming, programming, software documentation, documenting, software testing, testing, and Software bugs, bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applic ...
*
Common ownership Common ownership refers to holding the assets of an organization, enterprise or community indivisibly rather than in the names of the individual members or groups of members as common property. Forms of common ownership exist in every economi ...
*
Crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...
*
Crowdsourcing software development Crowdsourcing software development or software crowdsourcing is an emerging area of software engineering. It is an open call for participation in any task of software development, including documentation, design, coding and testing. These tasks a ...
*
Motivations of open source programmers The open-source-software movement is a movement that supports the use of open-source licenses for some or all software, as part of the broader notion of open collaboration. The open-source movement was started to spread the concept/idea of open- ...
* Gamification *
Decentralized planning (economics) A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, pa ...
*
Distributed manufacturing Distributed manufacturing also known as distributed production, cloud producing and local manufacturing is a form of decentralized manufacturing practiced by enterprises using a network of geographically dispersed manufacturing facilities that are ...
* Fablab *
Gift economy A gift economy or gift culture is a system of exchange where valuables are not sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. Social norms and customs govern giving a gift in a gift culture; although there ...
* ''
Here Comes Everybody Here Comes Everybody may refer to: * ''Here Comes Everybody'' (album), by Spacey Jane, 2022 * ''Here Comes Everybody'' (book), by Clay Shirky, 2008 * ''Here Comes Everybody'', a 1925 reprint of the novel ''Finnegans Wake'' * ''Here Comes Everybod ...
'' *
Knowledge commons The term "knowledge commons" refers to information, data, and content that is collectively owned and managed by a community of users, particularly over the Internet. What distinguishes a knowledge commons from a commons of shared physical resources ...
* Mass collaboration *
Nonformal learning Non-formal learning includes various structured learning situations which do not either have the level of curriculum, syllabus, accreditation and certification associated with 'formal learning', but have more structure than that associated with ...
*
Open collaboration Open collaboration is any "system of innovation or production that relies on goal-oriented yet loosely coordinated participants who interact to create a product (or service) of economic value, which is made available to contributors and noncontribu ...
* Peer learning * Peer review * Production for use *
Prosumer A prosumer is an individual who both consumes and produces. The term is a portmanteau of the words '' producer'' and ''consumer''. Research has identified six types of prosumers: DIY prosumers, self-service prosumers, customizing prosumers, coll ...
* Open business * Open manufacturing * Open music model *
Open-source hardware Open-source hardware (OSH) consists of physical artifacts of technology designed and offered by the open-design movement. Both free and open-source software (FOSS) and open-source hardware are created by this open-source culture movement and a ...
* Social peer-to-peer processes


References

{{Property navbox Collaboration Economic systems Free software Peer-to-peer Public commons