NEW COMMONS: TOWARDS A NECESSARY REAPPRAISAL

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement has been a crucial source of inspiration and theorization for the contemporary rediscovery of the commons. However, its growing organic integration into the industry, into the market and into a group of innovative forms of capitalistic competition is challenging the early interpretations of this phenomenon and, at the same time, is shedding new light on the forms that these new commons can take and on the potential role they will play in the new productive arrangements that are emerging on the frontier of the digital revolution. This article engages with these new evolutions and develops innovative approaches to this phenomenon. Specifically, it makes an original contribution in two directions. The first is by developing a new framework for analyzing the relationships between commons and markets. The framework is organized under three concepts: semi-commons, shared infrastructures and creation of ecosystems. As a whole, the framework highlights the importance of studying these new commons within hybrid combinations of regimes of property and economic appropriation. The second contribution is the development of interpretative keys for analyzing the evolution of the FOSS ecosystem. This is carried out through the experimental application of two frameworks of analysis to this phenomenon: the multi-level perspective and the theory of the techno-economic paradigms. These contributions allow us to draw conclusions regarding new directions for research and policy on FOSS and the new commons.