Protecting the Virtual Commons (Information Technology and Law Series)

New organizations have emerged from the increasing adoption of the Internet. One example is the so-called virtual community. Most virtual communities consist of people who are focused on solving or discussing a certain problem or issue . Literature about collective action (Olson, 1965) and common property resource management (Ostrom, 1990) pre­ dicts that cooperation and coordination in such communities would be difficult to achieve and sustain. Perhaps this is why many virtual commu­ nities remain popular for just a limited amount of time without ever hav­ ing much economic impact. One exception, however, is the so-called open source andfree software communities. In open source and free software communities, Internet users, prima­ rily hobbyists, develop an enormous variety of software. Communities like Linux, Apache and Debian are the flagships of open source and free software communities. These communities have proven themselves ca­ pable of developing software that can compete with the products of even a commercial software giant like Microsoft.