Digital Commons

The Digital Commons encompasses the entirety of digital artifacts, from code to training data for large language models, that is available to the public. Much like land-based commons, it’s value is intrinsically linked to being an equitably accessible resource.

The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons can also be understood as natural resources that groups of people (communities, user groups) manage for individual and collective benefit. Characteristically, this involves a variety of informal norms and values (social practice) employed for a governance mechanism. Commons can also be defined as a social practice of governing a resource not by state or market but by a community of users that self-governs the resource through institutions that it creates.

– Wikipedia, 2025-01-19

One example of a commons is Free/Libre and Open Source Software¹, but there are also overlaps with digital sovereignty concerns: a healthy digital commons enables sovereignty by removing dependencies on specific industry actors.

Similarly, open standards are necessary for enabling interoperability between software packages, so that such dependence is further reduced.

Much like its historic land-based predecessor, the digital commons is vulnerable to land-grabbing², and enclosure, and a healthy commons must be protected against such practices.

The digital commons can also be understood to encompass digital communications infrastructure. At a time where social networks are a major channel for political discourse, it is necessary that remain a useful resource, and do not get flooded by mis- and disinformation. The digital commons may thus be understood to include any social media platform that is independent of such influence, and provided, moderated and fact-checked by the citizenry itself.