--- --- Blog post by me from 2018: [Commons Based Peer Production](https://2023.bmannconsulting.com/blog/2018/10/11/commons-based-peer-production/) > The problem with the term open source is that everyone means something different when they use it. Some people just mean licensing. Some people think of a particular community’s set of practices. Others think that it means some kind of fuzzy democracy and mob rule. Ted Leung, [Explaining Commons Based Peer Production, er, Open Source](https://www.sauria.com/py-bin/pyblosxom/pyblosxom.cgi/computers/open_source/1233.html) > In this paper I explain that while free software is highly visible, it is in fact only one example of a much broader social-economic phenomenon. I suggest that we are seeing is the broad and deep emergence of a new, third mode of production in the digitally networked environment. I call this mode "commons-based peer-production," to distinguish it from the property- and contract-based models of firms and markets. Its central characteristic is that groups of individuals successfully collaborate on large-scale projects following a diverse cluster of motivational drives and social signals, rather than either market prices or managerial commands. Yochai Benkler, [[Coase's Penguin]]