ComeUnity CAPACITY BUILDING

Commons-Based Peer Production
Commons-based peer production is a term coined by Yale Law professor Yochai
Benkler to describe a new model of economic production in which the creative energy of
large numbers of people is coordinated (usually with the aid of the internet) into large,
meaningful projects, mostly without hierarchical organization or financial compensation.
He compares this to firm production (where a centralized decision process decides what
has to be done and by whom) and market-based production (when tagging different
prices to different jobs serves as an attractor to anyone interested in doing the job).
Examples of products created by means of commons-based peer production
include Linux, a computer operating system; Slashdot, a news and announcements
website; Kuro5hin, a discussion site for technology and culture; Wikipedia, an
online encyclopedia; and Clickworkers, a collaborative scientific work. Another example
is Socialtext, a software solution that uses tools such as wikis and weblogs and helps
companies to create a collaborative work environment.
Massively Distributed Collaboration
The term massively distributed collaboration was coined by Mitchell Kapor, in a
presentation at UC Berkeley on 2005-11-09, to describe an emerging activity
of wikis and electronic mailing lists and blogs and other content-creating virtual
communities online.
Page 68 of 201