Once regarded as marginal curiosities, commons-based peer production projects such as free and open source software and Wikipedia now define industrial innovation and hold the key to societal cohesion. <\/p>\n
\u2018Digital infrastructure\u2019 (also known as free and open source software) constitutes the \u2018roads and bridges\u2019 of the digital economy. After IBM\u2019s initial adoption in 2002 and Google\u2019s launch of Android in 2008, Microsoft\u2019s acquisition of GitHub for $7.5 billion in 2018 epitomised the shift from an \u2018informational capitalism\u2019 organised around the protection of IP to a nimbler \u2018digital capitalism\u2019 which integrates the digital commons into its ecosystem. <\/p>\n
As for Wikipedia, long derided as \u2018untrustworthy,\u2019 it now represents the only realistic response to societal maladies such as misinformation and the distrust of scientific knowledge: made-up conspiracies based on \u2018doing your own research\u2019 are systematically weeded out on Wikipedia (provided the article has a reasonable number of contributors). Everyone can see how the epistemic sausage is made; everyone is treated the same. This explains why right-wing conspiracy theorists now claim Wikipedia has a \u2018left-wing\u2019 bias: because their lies are not tolerated.<\/p>\n
We are not suggesting that free and open source software and Wikipedia are perfect – issues such as sexism, inequality and (on Wikipedia) regulatory inertia are well documented – but all the same, their benefits are near-immeasurable.<\/p>\n
In short, peer production is now triumphant. It propels technological innovation, it defeats misinformation! But it also faces a severe lack of recognition. Wikipedia and free and open source software\u2019s radically collaborative mode of production and significant contributions to society and industry are not well understood in the broader community. <\/p>\n
Further, the integration of free and open source software into dominant for-profit ecosystems constitutes a potentially deadly peril, as the advent of cloud computing and Software as a Service (SaaS) negate the reciprocal capacities of popular copyleft licenses. [1] <\/p>\n
recognition for volunteer work and the commons sector<\/h2>\n
We believe an academic journal does not represent the most effective means to promote the societal recognition of the digital commons, or to oppose the threats they face. It is time to develop new tools. The work of the P2P Foundation<\/a>, Commons Transition<\/a>, Communia<\/a> and Commons Network <\/a>shows the way, but more organisations and initiatives that can facilitate connections between peer production and traditional institutions are necessary. In the context of widespread automation leading to increasing rates of unemployment in many sectors, there is a need to develop the means to gain more space and recognition for volunteer work and the commons sector from states and firms. Too often, unpaid digital labour producing digital commons is captured by \u2018free riding\u2019 entities who benefit without contributing to their sustainability in return.<\/p>\n To this end, in 2021 members of the Journal of Peer Production community began working on a new \u2018think tank\u2019: the Digital Commons Policy Council. The Digital Commons Policy Council (DCPC) documents initiatives seeking to expand the digital commons and to use the digital commons to transition to a more ecologically sustainable and fair society. It also seeks to increase the recognition of the social benefits of the digital commons and of the volunteer labour which produces these common resources. It does so by producing evidence-based public reports and how-to guides, and by making submissions to government.<\/p>\n The DCPC\u2019s website is dcpc.info<\/a>. We present below existing and planned DCPC reports.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n For the DCPC:<\/strong> Kit Braybrooke, Angela Daly, Mathieu O\u2019Neil, Stefano Zacchiroli<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n [1] In a \u2018traditional\u2019 mode, a software program is downloaded and executed by customers on their own hardware. In a SaaS mode, the program is never transferred onto the customers\u2019 machines, but is executed remotely on the provider\u2019s hardware, and used online (e.g. within a Web browser). With SaaS, service prevails over use: a subscription to a service is bought, rather than a user licensing agreement being accepted for software copied onto the user\u2019s computer. This creates a SaaS \u2018loophole\u2019 in the FOSS principle as implemented by most FOSS licenses, as the service provider is no longer obliged to offer access to the code: as SaaS software is not \u2018distributed,\u2019 it fails to trigger the reciprocal character of licenses such as the GPL (to be sure, a significant amount of FOSS is not distributed under a copyleft license, but under more permissive licenses such as MIT or BSD which are chosen by firms precisely because they do not contain the reciprocal characteristics of the GPL).<\/p>\n Title<\/strong> The coproduction of open source software by volunteers and big tech firms<\/a><\/p>\n Authors <\/strong>O\u2019Neil, Cai, Muselli, Pailler, Zacchiroli<\/p>\n Released <\/strong>9 JUN. 2021<\/p>\n This report maps how firms are collaborating with communities of unpaid volunteers to produce open source code, used in the \u2018digital infrastructure\u2019 which powers the contemporary networked economy. The IT news media, big tech firms and commercial foundations define firms and projects as a unified \u2018community.\u2019 Yet big tech firms such as Amazon are using cloud computing and Software as a Service to transform open source software, which is intended to be shared and modified, into closed assets. The report outlines strategic responses to big tech appropriation and reviews current debates about the recognition of volunteer work, money in FOSS, software licenses and universal basic incomes. The report also features invited comments exploring alternative perspectives by French open source specialists from the fields of academia, industry and activism, such as Framasoft<\/a>.<\/p>\n Title <\/strong>2016 Debian Project survey: Work and volunteers<\/a><\/p>\n Authors <\/strong>O\u2019Neil, Zacchiroli, de Blanc<\/p>\n Released <\/strong>16 DEC. 2021<\/p>\n Debian<\/a> is a free software distribution (a distribution is a software suite comprising an operating system and applications). Established following a community model in 1993, Debian aims to be a \u2018universal\u2019 system both in the sense of operating on as many architectures as possible and of featuring as many application packages as possible. Its robustness and strict adherence to the principles of free software have made it legendary. Debian is used by organisations, governments, and individuals all over the world, including much of the critical digital infrastructure that runs daily life. This survey, held in 2016, inaugurated our inquiry into the relationship between volunteer work in free and open source software and broader dimensions of work and employment. There was great interest for this survey within the Debian community, and 1,479 people responded.<\/p>\n Title <\/strong>Report on the production of digital commons and on the conditions of the organisation and action of the Digital Commons Policy Council<\/p>\n Authors <\/strong>DCPC<\/p>\n Released <\/strong>forthcoming 2022<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Announcing the creation of the digital commons policy council Once regarded as marginal curiosities, commons-based peer production projects such as free and open source software and Wikipedia now define industrial innovation and hold the key to societal cohesion. \u2018Digital infrastructure\u2019 (also known as free and open source software) constitutes the<\/p>\n
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