Peer Production

Definition by Wikipedia

URL = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_production

"Commons-based peer production is a term coined by professor Yochai Benkler to describe a new model of economic production, different from both markets and firms, in which the creative energy of large numbers of people is coordinated (usually with the aid of the internet) into large, meaningful projects, largely without traditional hierarchical organization or financial compensation."

Why is it emerging now?

Yochai Benkler

Yochai Benkler advances a powerful hypothesis, that lowering the capital requirements of information production

1. reduces the value of proprietary strategies and makes public, shared information more important,

2. encourages a wider range of motivations to produce, thus demoting supply-and-demand from prime motivator to one-of-many, and

3. allows large-scale, cooperative information production efforts that were not possible before, from open-source software, to search engines and encyclopedias, to massively multi-player online games.

See his book: The Wealth of Networks

Michel Bauwens

This is an excerpt from the P2P Foundational Manifesto at http://p2pfoundation.net/index.php/3._P2P_in_the_Economic_Sphere

"There are two important aspects to the emergence of P2P in the economic sphere. On the one hand, as format for peer production processes (called ‘Commons-based peer production' or CBPP by Y. Benckler ) it is emerging as a 'third mode of production' based on the cooperation of autonomous agents. Indeed, if the first mode of production is free-market based capitalism, and the second mode was the now defunct model of a centrally-planned state-owned economy, then the third mode is defined neither by the motor of profit, nor by any central planning. In order to allocate resources and make decisions, it is neither using market and pricing mechanisms, nor managerial commands, but social relations.

The second aspect, as the juridical underpinning of software creation, in the form of the General Public License, or as the Creative Commons license for other creative content, it is engendering a new commons-based intellectual property regime. Taken together the GPL, the Open Source Initiative and the Creative Commons, together with associated initiatives such as the Art Libre license, may be seen as providing the 'legal' infrastructure for the emergence and growth of the P2P social formation. Peer production proper covers the first aspect: freely cooperating producers, governing themselves through peer governance, and producing a new type of universal common goods. The second aspect, mostly as free software and open sources, is the result of that process, but not necessarily. It is possible that corporations would produce free software (accessible and modifiable for free), in a more traditional way, or in a hybrid way, now that many large corporations are embracing open sources, this is increasingly the case.

But what is important for us is the following: worldwide, groups of programmers and other experts are engaging in the cooperative production of immaterial goods with important use value, mostly new software systems, but not exclusively. And as we will see later, peer production is much broader than software, it emerges thoughout the social field. The new software, hardware and other immaterial products thus being created are at the same time new means of production, since the computer is now a universal machine ‘in charge of everything’ (every productive action that can be broken down in logical steps can be directed by a computer). Access to computer technology is distributed, and thus widely affordable given a minimum of financial means, and technological literacy. This means that the old dichotomy, between workers and the means of production, is in the process of being overcome for certain areas of fixed capital, and that the emergence of the viral communicator model, technological meshworks, is extending this model of distributed access to fixed capital assets, to more and more areas. Important to note is that software is 'active text' which directly results in 'processes'. In other words, software is not just an immaterial pursuit, but can actively direct material and industrial processes. As a cooperation format, we will discuss it in more detail in the section 'Advantages of the peer production model'. Peer governance models will also be discussed elsewhere.

A further important aspect of peer production is the creation of universal public goods, i.e. the emergence of new common property regimes. As creation of a new type of commons, it takes the form of either the Free Software Movement ethos , as defined by Richard Stallman (Stallman, 2002 ), or in the form of Open Source projects, as first defined by Eric Raymond (Raymond, 2001). Both are innovative developments of copyright that significantly transcend the implications of privaty property and its restrictions. However, the ethos underlying both initiatives is different, While the Free Software Foundation insists that its production is not for exchange on the market, and not to be converted into private property, the Open Source Iniative aims to be compatible with the market and business thinking and stresses the efficiency argument which results from a public domain of software.

Free software is essentially 'open code'. Its General Public Licence says that anyone using free software must give subsequent users at least the same rights as they themselves received: total freedom to see the code, to change it, to improve it and to distribute it . There is some discussion as to whether Free Software must be 'free', in the sense of free beer . While its spokesmen, including Richard Stallman, clearly say that it is okay to charge for such software, the obligation of free distribution makes this a rather moot argument. The companies that sell software, such as Red Hat, which sells version of Linux, could be said to charge for the services attached to its installation and use, rather than for the freely distributable software itself. This is an important argument for those stressing, as I do, the essential non-mercantile nature of free software. But in any case, if in a for-profit enterprise software is developed so that it can be sold as a product, in the case of free software, if it is sold by non-commercial entities or the programmers themselves, it is most often as a means of producing more software, to strengthen the community and obtain financial independence to continue further projects.

FS explicitely rejects the ownership of software, since every user has the right to distribute the code, and to adapt it and is thus explicitely founded on a philosophy of participation and 'sharing'. Open Sources is admittedly less radical: it accepts ownership of software, but renders that ownership feeble since users and other developers have full right to use and change it . But since the OS model has been specifically designed to soften its acceptance by the business community which is now increasingly involved in its development , it generally leads to a lot more control of the labor process, including the use of traditional corporate processes. OS licenses allow segments of code to be used in proprietary and commercial projects, something impossible with pure free software. But even free software projects have become increasingly professionalised , and it now generally consists of a core of often paid professionals, funded by either nonprofits or by corporations having an interest in its continued expansion; they also use professional project management systems, as is the case for Linux. Despite their differences or essential likeness – a matter of continuous debate in both FS and OS communities -- I will use both concepts more for their underlying similarity, without my use denoting a preference, but on a personal level would be probably closer to the free software model, which is the 'purer' form of commons-based peer production.

Despite it rootedness as a modification of intellectual property rights, both do have the effect of creating a kind of public domain in software, and can be considered as part of the information commons . However, the GPL does that by completely preserving the authorship of its creators. Free software and open sources are exemplary of the double nature of peer to peer that we will discuss later: it is both within the system, but partly transcends it. Though it is increasingly attractive to economic forces for its efficiency, the profit motive is not the core of why these systems are taken up, it is much more about the use value of the products. You could say that they are part of a new 'for-benefit' sector, which also includes the NGO's, social entrepreneurs and what the Europeans call 'the social economy', and that is arising next to the 'for-profit' economy of private corporations. Studies show that the personal development of participants are primary motives, despite the fact that quite a few programmers are now paid for their efforts . Whatever the motives though, in a sense 'it doesn't matter' since in the open and global environment create by the internet, there is always a sufficient number of people willing to cooperate on any given project. Open Sources explicitely promotes itself through its value to create more efficient software in the business environment. It is even being embraced by corporate interests such as IBM and other Microsoft rivals, as a way to bypass the latter's monopoly, but the creation of an open infrastructure is clearly crucial and in everyone’s interest. But through the generalization of a cooperative mode of working , and through its overturning of the limits of property, which normally forbids other developers and users to study and ameliorate the source code, it is beyond the property model, contrary to the authoritarian, bureaucratic, or 'feudal' modes of corporate governance; and beyond the profit motive. We should also note that we have here the emergence of a mode of production that can be entirely devoid of a manufacturer . In the words of Doc Searls, senior editor of Linux magazine, we see the demand-side supplying itself .

In conclusion:

Seen from the point of view of capitalism or private for-profit interests, commons-based peer production has the following advantages : 1) it represents more productive ways of working and of mobilizing external communities to its own purposes ; 2) it represents a means of externalizing costs or of lowering transaction costs ; 3) it represents new types of business models based on 'customer-made production', such as eBay and Amazon; 4) it represents new service-based business models, where by free software is used as the basis of providing surrounding services (Red Hat); 5) it represents a common shared infrastructure whose costs and building is taken up largely by the community and which prohibits both monopolistic control by stronger rivals as well as providing common standards so that a market can develop around it. In all these senses FS/OS forms of peer production are 'within the system'.

We should also stress the dependence of the peer production community to the existing system. Since producers are not paid for their services, they have to work within the mainstream economy: for the government or academia, for traditional corporations, running their own individual or small business, or moving from project to project. Thus, despite its growth, peer production is still relatively weak. Though it outcompetes its for-profit rivals in efficiency, though it increases the welfare of its producers, though it creates important use value, it only covers part of the economy, mostly immaterial processes, while the mainstream, capitalist economy, functions as a full system. In this sense, peer to peer is immanent in the system, and productive of capitalism itself, as we have shown in the first chapter. But it is also more than that, a transcendent element that goes beyond the larger system of which it is a part. It is a germ of something new: it still goes 'beyond' the existing system.

To summarise the importance of the 'transcending' factors of Commons-based peer production: 1) it is based on free cooperation, not on the selling of one's labour in exchange of a wage, nor motivated primarily by profit or for the exchange value of the resulting product; 2) it not managed by a traditional hierarchy, but through new modes of peer governance; 3) it does not need a manufacturer; 4) it's an innovative application of copyright which creates an information commons and transcends the limitations attached to both the private (for-profit) and public (state-based) property forms. It creates a new type of universal common property.

How widespread are these developments? Open-source based computers are already the mainstay of the internet’s infrastructure (Apache servers); Linux is an alternative operating system that is taking the world by storm . It is now a practical possibility to operating system that is taking the world by storm . It is now a practical possibility to create an Open Source personal computer that exclusively uses OS software products for the desktop, including database, accounting, graphical programs, including browsers such as Firefox . It is recognized as its main threat by the current operating system monopoly Microsoft . As a collaborative method to produce software, it is being used increasingly by various businesses and institutions . Wikipedia is an alternative encyclopedia produced by the internet community which is rapidly gaining in quantity, quality, and number of users. And there are several thousands of such projects, involving at least several millions of cooperating individuals. If we consider blogging as a form of journalistic production, then it must be noted that it already involves between 5 and 10 million bloggers, with the most popular ones achieving several hundred thousands of visitors. We are pretty much in an era of ‘open source everything’, with musicians and other artists using it as well for collaborative online productions. In general it can be said that this mode of production achieves ‘products’ that are at least as good, and often better than their commercial counterparts. In addition, there are solid reasons to accept that, if the open source methodology is consistently used over time, the end result can only be better alternatives, since they involved mobilization of vastly most resources than commercial products." (http://p2pfoundation.net/index.php/3._P2P_in_the_Economic_Sphere)

Characteristics of Peer Production

An excerpt from the manuscript.

3.3.C. Beyond Formalization, Institutionalization, Commodification

Observation of commons-based peer production and knowledge exchange, unveils a further number of important elements, which can be added to our earlier definition and has to be added to the characteristic of holoptism just discussed in 3.4.B.

In premodern societies, knowledge is ‘guarded’, it is part of what constitutes power. Guilds are based on secrets, the Church does not translate the Bible, and it guards its monopoly of interpretation. Knowledge is obtained through imitation and initiation in closed circles.

With the advent of modernity, and let’s think about Diderot’s project of the Encyclopedia as an example, knowledge is from now on regarded as a public resource which should flow freely. But at the same time, modernity, as described by Foucault in particular, starts a process of regulating the flow of knowledge through a series of formal rules, which aim to distinguish valid knowledge from invalid one. The academic peer review method, the setting up of universities which regulate discourse, the birth of professional bodies as guardians of expertise, the scientific method, are but a few of such regulations. An intellectual property rights regime also regulates the legitimate use one can make of such knowledge, and which is responsible for a re-privatization of knowledge. If original copyright served to stimulate creation by balancing the rights of authors and the public, the recent strengthening of intellectual property rights can be more properly understood as an attempt at ‘enclosure’ of the information commons, which has to serve to create monopolies based on rent obtained through licenses. Thus at the end of modernity, in a similar process to what we described in the field of work culture, there is an exacerbation of the most negative aspects of the privatization of knowledge: IP legislation is incredibly tightened, information sharing becomes punishable, the market invades the public sphere of universities and academic peer review and the scientific commons are being severely damaged.

Again, peer to peer appears as a radical shift. In the new emergent practices of knowledge exchange, equipotency is assumed from the start. There are no formal rules to prohibit anyone from participation, a characteristic that could be called 'anti-credentialism' . (unlike academic peer review, where formal degrees are required ). Validation is a communal intersubjective process. It often takes place through a process akin to swarming, whereby large number of participants will tug at the mistakes in a piece of software or text, the so-called 'piranha effect', and so perfect it better than an individual genius could. Many examples of this kind are described in the book 'The Wisdom of Crowds', by James Surowiecki. Though there are constraints in this process, depending on the type of governance chosen by various P2P projects, what stands out compared to previous modes of production is the self-selection aspect. Production is granular and modular, and only the individuals themselves know exactly if their exact mix of expertise fits the problem at hand. We have autonomous selection instead of heteronomous selection.

If there are formal rules, they have to be accepted by the community, and they are ad hoc for particular projects. In the Slashdot online publishing system which serves the open source community, a large group of editors combs through the postings, and there’s a complex system of ratings of the editors themselves; in other systems every article is rated creating a hierarchy of interest which pushes the lesser-rated articles down the list. As we explained above, in the context of knowledge classification, there is a move away from institutional categorization using hierarchical trees of knowledge, such as the bibliographic formats (Dewey, UDC, etc..), to informal communal ‘tagging’, what some people have termed folksonomies. In blogging, news and commentary are democratized and open to any participant, and it is the reputation of trustworthiness, acquired over time, by the individual in question, which will lead to the viral diffusion of particular ‘memes’. Power and influence are determined by the quality of the contribution, and have to be accepted and constantly renewed by the community of participants. All this can be termed the de-formalization of knowledge.

A second important aspect is de-institutionalization. In premodernity, knowledge is transmitted through tradition, through initiation by experienced masters to those who are validated to participate in the chain mostly through birth. In modernity, as we said, validation and the legitimation of knowledge is processed through institutions. It is assumed that the autonomous individual needs socialization, ‘disciplining’, through such institutions. Knowledge has to be mediated. Thus, whether a news item is trustworthy is determined largely by its source, say the Wall Street Journal, or the Encyclopedia Brittanica, who are supposed to have formal methodologies and expertise. P2P processes are de-institutionalized, in the sense that it is the collective itself which validates the knowledge.

Please note my semantic difficulty here. Indeed, it can be argued that P2P is just another form of institution, another institutional framework, in the sense of a self-perpetuating organizational format. And that would be correct: P2P processes are not structureless, but most often flexible structures that follow internally generated rules. In previous social forms, institutions got detached from the functions and objectives they had to play, became 'autonomous'. In turn because of the class structure of society, and the need to maintain domination, and because of 'bureaucratization' and self-interest of the institutional leaderships, those institutions turn 'against society' and even against their own functions and objectives. Such institutions become a factor of alienation. It is this type of institutionalization that is potentially overcome by P2P processes. The mediating layer between participation and the result of that participation, is much thinner, dependent on protocol rather controlled by hierarchy.

A good example of P2P principles at work can be found in the complex of solutions instituted by the University of Openness. UO is a set of free-form ‘universities’, where anyone who wants to learn or to share his expertise can form teams with the explicit purpose of collective learning. There are no entry exams and no final exams. The constitution of teams is not determined by any prior disciplinary categorization. The library of UO is distributed, i.e. all participating individuals can contribute their own books to a collective distributed library . The categorization of the books is explicitly ‘anti-systemic’, i.e. any individual can build his own personal ontologies of information, and semantic web principles are set to work to uncover similarities between the various categorizations .

All this prefigures a profound shift in our epistemologies. In modernity, with the subject-object dichotomy, the autonomous individual is supposed to gaze objectively at the external world, and to use formalized methodologies, which will be intersubjectively verified through academic peer review. Post-modernity has caused strong doubts about this scenario. The individual is no longer considered autonomous, but always-already part of various fields, of power, of psychic forces, of social relations, molded by ideologies, etc.. Rather than in need of socialization, the presumption of modernity, he is seen to be in need of individuation. But he is no longer an ‘indivisible atom’, but rather a singularity, a unique and ever-evolving composite. His gaze cannot be truly objective, but is always partial, as part of a system can never comprehend the system as a whole. The individual has a single set of perspectives on things reflecting his own history and limitations. Truth can therefore only be apprehended collectively by combining a multiplicity of other perspectives, from other singularities, other unique points of integration, which are put in ‘common’. It is this profound change in epistemologies which P2P-based knowledge exchange reflects.

A third important aspect of P2P is the process of de-commodification. In traditional societies, commodification, and ‘market pricing’ was only a relative phenomenon. Economic exchange depended on a set of mutual obligations, and even were monetary equivalents were used, the price rarely reflected an open market. It is only with industrial capitalism that the core of the economic exchanges started to be determined by market pricing, and both products and labor became commodities. But still, there was a public culture and education system, and immaterial exchanges largely fell outside this system. With cognitive capitalism, the owners of information assets are no longer content to live any immaterial process outside the purview of commodification and market pricing, and there is a strong drive to ‘privatize everything’, education included, our love lives included Any immaterial process can be resold as commodities. Thus again, in the recent era the characteristics of capitalism are exacerbated, with P2P representing the counter-reaction. With ‘commons-based peer production’ or P2P-based knowledge exchange more generally, the production does not result in commodities sold to consumers, but in use value made for users. Because of the GPL license, no copyrighted monopoly can arise. GPL products can eventually be sold, but such sale is usually only a credible alternative (since it can most often be downloaded for free), if it is associated with a service model. It is in fact mostly around such services that commercial open source companies found their model (example: Red Hat). Since the producers of commons-based products are rarely paid, their main motivation is not the exchange value for the eventually resulting commodity, but the increase in use value, their own learning and reputation. Motivation can be polyvalent, but will generally be anything but monetary.

One of the reasons of the emergence of the commodity-based economy, capitalism, is that a market is an efficient means to distribute ‘information’ about supply and demand, with the concrete price determining value as a synthesis of these various pressures. In the P2P environment we see the invention of alternative ways of determining value, through software algorhythms. In search engines, value is determined by algorhythms that determine pointers to documents, the more pointers, and the more value these pointers themselves have, the higher the value accorded to a document. This can be done either in a general matter, or for specialized interests, by looking at the rankings within the specific community, or even on a individual level, through collaborative filtering, by looking at what similar individuals have rated and used well. So in a similar but alternative way to the reputation-based schemes, we have a set of solutions to go beyond pricing, and beyond monetarisation, to determine value. The value that is determined in this case is of course an indication of potential use value, rather than ‘exchange value’ for the market.

See also our entries on Equipotentiality, Anti-credentialism, and Communal Validation

Reasons for Peer Production

Franz Nahrada summarizes the arguments of Yochai Benkler in The Wealth of Networks:

"The networked information economy improves individual autonomy in three ways. (the following observations partly quoted from Yochai Benkler)

• First, it improves individuals’ capacities to do more for and by themselves. Take baking for example. The internet offers thousands of different recipes for apple pie. A first time baker no longer needs to buy a Betty Crocker cookbook, call his grandmother for a recipe, or enroll in a cooking class to learn how to bake a pie. All he needs to do is perform a Google search for the phrase “apple pie recipe" Likewise, someone skilled in the art of pie-making and with a wish to share his knowledge does not need technical expertise to share it: he could easily start a blog devoted to pie recipes.

• Second, it improves individuals’ capacity to do more in loose affiliation with others in a non-market setting. Again, the results of the Google “apple pie recipe" search are an example of the success of this loose uncoordinated affiliation. Another one would be "peer to peer networks" with people exchanging their music collections or the SETI@home example. In this approach the critical issue is an architecture of participation - ‘inclusive defaults for aggregating user data and building value as a side-effect of ordinary use of the application’. Users do not have to positively act to contribute, their ordinary use of the application is structured so as to benefit others.

• Three, the networked information society improves individuals’ capacity to corporate with others through formal or organized groups that operate outside the market sphere based on voluntary commitment and rules that keep individual contributions in line and workeable. Sometimes hierachies are involved. Wikipedia, the open source software movement,are all examples.

The fluidity and low level (both in terms of money and time) of commitment required for participation in these wide range of projects is just one of the ways in which the networked information economy has enhanced individuals’ autonomy. Eben where there are formal structures, cooperation can easily be broken by "taking the repository" and forking, which leads to much different leadership styles than in any other historical organisation." (http://www.globalvillages.info/wiki.cgi?GlobalVillages/FranzNahrada/Workspace/RomeSpeech)

Yochai Benkler on the conditions for success

As summarized Tom Abate by at http://www.newcommblogzine.com/?p=509

"Benkler lays out three characteristics of successul group efforts:

“They (the tasks)

1) must be modular. That is, they must be divisible into components, or modules, each of which can be produced independently of the production of the others. This enables production to be incremental and asynchronous, pooling the efforts of different people, with different capabilities, who are available at different times."

2.) “For a peer production process to pool successfully a relatively large number of contributors, the modules should be predominately fine–grained, or small size. This allows the project to capture contributions from large numbers of contributors whose motivation levels will not sustain anything more than small efforts toward the project ...."

3.) “... a successful peer production enterprise must have low–cost integration, which includes both quality control over the modules and a mechanism for integrating the contributions into the finished product, while defending “itself against incompetent or malicious contributors. (http://www.newcommblogzine.com/?p=509)

Chris Ahlert reflects on the expansion of peer production

URL = http://openbusiness.cc/category/models

"The main difference between software and material good productions concerns their outcomes: software and material good. Software is a kind of information and immaterial in its essence, and hence extremely easy to copy, distribute and share. On the other side, material goods are not copyable at all, and are not so easy to share ultimately. This difference leads to an important consequence: when material goods are sold a producer is alienated from the goods sold. Conversely, when software are "sold" a producer does not lose them. To show the possibility of expanding the FOSS model, we draw upon the following analytical division of the production of any economic areas:

(1) The production of `knowledge of production'. It is part of the means of production and mainly an outcome of R&D activities, and a part of that is already in public domain;

(2) The production of `material goods'. It uses the outcome of the previous production and is usually the end product that is sold to consumers (TVs, furniture, cars, etc);

(3) The "production" of services. It may be regarded as the work of installing, fixing and maintenance of material and immaterial goods.

In the software area, however, the end product is not the result of (2), but of (1), since software are part of both the means and the outcome, of the software production, and of course are not material. Software are part of the means to produce more software.In the proprietary model, software are artificially regarded as a material good, and thereby as if were an outcome of the activity (2). The price of the end software endows the cost of the activity (1), whose outcome is kept secret and privately owned. On the contrary, free software are regarded as information and kept free through the GPL-like licenses; software sources are open and produced cooperatively. In the FOSS business model, what pays the "cooperative R&D" to develop free software is the selling of material goods and services related to the software developed cooperatively.

In other areas of economy, concerning material goods, these are not sharable of course, as well are not shareable tools, machinery and other physical infra-structures. However, the knowledge of production is indeed sharable and, in a sense, very similar to software. That is the clue for expanding the FOSS model to other economic areas.In the traditional capitalist model, the knowledge of production is regarded in the same way as software in the proprietary model: the R&D outcome and knowledge of production in general are held secret, privately owned, and, in the specific case of material production, often protected against competitors through patents. So, knowledge of production are mostly developed and owned privately, and their costs are endowed in the price of material goods, and may lead to consumers' locking, monopoly, etc. Conversely, knowledge of production could regarded in the same way as free software: any knowledge of production could be developed cooperatively and owned collectively. We may call it as the Free Open Knowledge of Production (FOKP) model, and think of an specific FOKP for each area of production, from TVs and cars, to furniture and houses. To clarify this idea, we now develop a complete parallel with the FOSS model to show how the FOKP model would work, hypothetically. In the FOKP model, the knowledge of production of any economic areas is developed in a voluntary FOKP community of developers, producers and consumers, which is a huge, strong and friendly community, based on sharing and cooperation, not only on competition and race for money. In this cooperative environment, many gifted developers work together for the common good. There is a free knowledge ideology behind this model, that is about giving freedom to developers, producers and consumers of material goods, unlocking information and supporting free flow of innovation.

There is a key feature in the FOKP model: its GPL-like licenses keep free every new knowledge of production developed, from previous ones. Everyone is free to distribute free knowledge, but only if they distribute it under the same free license, which secures the collective property of free knowledge of production, and assures the 4 freedoms to every developer, producer and consumer:

(0) The freedom to use the knowledge of production, for any purpose;

(1) The freedom to study the knowledge of production, and how the produced good should work, in order to adapt it to your needs;

(2) The freedom to redistribute copies, so you can help your neighbour;

(3) The freedom to improve the knowledge of production, and release improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits;

Through FOKP licenses, the production of free knowledge becomes intrinsically cooperative and community driven: the entire FOKP community may participate in developing free knowledge of production, reporting problems of goods produced, deciding about new features that are needed in certain goods, writing documentation, translating consumers' needs, etc. In short, free knowledge are produced cooperatively by many people, and free licenses are what adds a magic glue to the FOKP community, the good feeling that comes from doing good for others, and knowing that it will continue to do that good for as long as it is used. The model also leads to a new kind of business: the FOKP business model, which is based on selling only the material goods and services, but not the outcome of R&D activities that is mainly developed cooperatively and owned collectively. Open organisations profit not from a private knowledge of production, but from the proper production of material goods and related services, that is, from the work actually realised to make them. Competition is then accomplished over the kinds, variety, combination and quality of the produced goods and services. Presumably, this new model has several consequences: (a) innovations are more consumer oriented to their actual needs; (b) generally, free knowledge of production are quicker developed, and the material goods produced using them present more quality than the proprietary ones; (c) cooperation and competition are both widely stimulated, speeding technological advance; and (d) consumers' locking and monopolies are naturally avoid. This vision is powerful: it does seem to be feasible in some way or another. But we should be cautious as far the actual viability of the FOKP model." (http://openbusiness.cc/category/models)

The Evolution of Peer Production

Franz Narada distinguishes three phases in the development of peer production, based on the intensity of the collaboration between peers, and its relation with the for-profit mode of production.

1. The classical "prosumer mode", in which everybody is working basically for themselves in using and customizing productive abilities created or reinforced by industrial products that enable people do use "embodied potentials" of information and automation. Alvin Toffler has discovered that in the eighties, but only Shosanna Zuboff recently formulated that this will result in a "copernican shift" where the value-creation in the classical sense is replaced by the support economy.

2. The "swarm mode" in which people are loosely aggregated in doing things, either for themselves (ebay,musicsharing) or for an external task that uses the "least effort" way (Seti@home and successors)

3. The "community mode", in which the team up in new forms of voluntary social organisation. (classical example Free Software).

The interesting thing is that this three modes are pretty separated, but there is a "hidden continuum" structurally connecting them, they become "mutual enablers". (http://www.globalvillages.info/wiki.cgi?GlobalVillages/FranzNahrada/Workspace/RomeSpeech)