Sustainability Language

Data, Technology & Verification Systems

Digital commons

Digital resources — software, data, knowledge — that are collectively produced, owned and governed by communities under open licences.

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Definition

Digital commons are digital resources — such as open-source software, open data and freely licensed knowledge — together with the communities and governance arrangements that produce and maintain them. Tracing lineage from the 1980s free-software movement (GNU, 1983; Linux, 1991) through Creative Commons licensing and Wikipedia, the concept applies Ostrom-style commons governance to non-rival digital goods, emphasising communal production, shared decision power and reusability.

References

Overview

What it means

Commons logic applied to code and information: resources anyone can use, governed by those who build them rather than enclosed by platforms.

How it is used

The term frames EU and national policy on open source, digital public goods and public digital infrastructure, and counters Big Tech concentration.

Why it matters

Verification data, standards and sustainability tools increasingly run on digital commons; their governance determines who controls the infrastructure of transparency.

Review

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