Commons Network

= U.S., European networks + concept by Christian Siefkes

The European Network

= "a non-profit advocacy organization and think-tank that engages in policy formulation as well as public debate, promoting the public good through commons-based solutions".

URL = http://commonsnetwork.eu/

Focusing on open access:

" The Commons Network is a civil society initiative working on a local, national and European level. We feel a new balance favoring the public good needs be found in many different spheres of society. The challenge is to create political will and to design laws and institutions that facilitate and allow for this. The commons approach allows for a comprehensive way to confront this challenge.

We are also a knowledge advocacy initiative with a social justice and sustainability approach. We aim to overcome the tension that at times exists between a strict individual rights approach, often embracing a narrow atomistic view of society, and the defense of collective social equity and ecological protection. While we are also adamant in our defense of individual rights we go beyond this point of view and aim for broader socially just policies that promote fair institutional frameworks for the generation and management of knowledge." (http://commonsnetwork.eu/approach/)

Contact via info@commonsnetwork.eu

The U.S. Network

URL = http://www.onthecommons.org/work/commons-network/join-commons-network

"Do you seek to help communities collaborate in new ways? Are you interested in creative resource sharing? Do you often think about what we all share—and work to reclaim and protect it for future generations?

If you are drawn to these kind of commons-based approaches, you belong in the Commons Network, a group of individuals and organizations who advance the commons in communities all over the world."

The Concept

Concept proposed by Christian Siefkes.

"Free design is an important building block for spreading peer production, but it is not enough. A second topic discussed in Hiddinghausen <http://www.keimform.de/2008/09/04/hiddinghausen-talks-1-free-design/> was therefore how to facilitate and encourage the sharing and the shared production of physical goods and of services in all areas of life. My proposal here is called the *Commons Network.*

The Commons Network is inspired by the practices of free software and free content projects, where people do things they like to do (such as writing software or texts) and, by doing so, produce goods that are useful for others; but also by the approach of wireless community networks where the participants jointly build a free network, allowing everyone to transfer data through the free network or to access the Internet through it. Community networks are interesting because they organize the free sharing of limited resources that cannot just be copied freely (bandwidth and Internet access). And some community networks are interesting in that they're self-organizing and self-healing: whenever nodes (participating computers) join or leave such a _mesh network_, it reconfigures itself to ensure that all data still finds the best route through the network.

The idea of the Commons Network (future URL: commonsnetwork.org) is to build a loose network of people and projects that is based on *commons* (goods which are jointly used, managed or owned) and that allows the free sharing and the shared production of goods and resources among everybody who wants to get involved. Ideally, the network should also become a self-organizing and self-healing "mesh," where production processes spontaneously adapt to the needs and wishes of the people involved and where anybody can join or leave the network without causing disruption." (http://www.keimform.de/2008/09/08/hiddinghausen-talks-2-commons-network/)

More Information

See also: Sharing Network

This page previously held information about the Commons Network Coalition