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Everything about Knowledge commons
Collectively shared and managed information
The term "knowledge commons" refers to information, data, and content that is collectively owned and managed by a community of users, particularly over the Internet. What distinguishes a knowledge commons from a commons of shared physical resources is that digital resources are non-subtractible; that is, multiple users can access the same digital resources with no effect on their quantity or quality. Wikipedia →
🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path
- Read the overview: Knowledge commonsA 5-minute orientation
- Skim a recent paper: More a Commons Than a Fictitious Commodity: Tacit Knowledge, Sharing, and Cooperation in Knowledge GovernanceInfluential work since 2022
- Pick up a classic book: Understanding Knowledge as a CommonsThe most-reprinted book on the subject
- Read the landmark paper: Participation in the global knowledge commonsCited 78 times
- Go sideways: Open sourceA closely related topic
- Go sideways: Free licenseA closely related topic
📖 Definitions
No dictionary entry for this exact phrase.
🗂️ The subject at a glance
🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)
Participation in the global knowledge commons
Blockchain Networks as Knowledge Commons
Privacy as Commons: Case Evaluation Through the Governing Knowledge Commons Framework
Cooperative research and knowledge flow in the marine commons
From information commons to knowledge commons
Indigenous knowledge and the knowledge commons
Knowledge Economy and the Commons
Intellectual property, complex externalities, and the knowledge commons
🆕 Influential since 2022
More a Commons Than a Fictitious Commodity: Tacit Knowledge, Sharing, and Cooperation in Knowledge Governance
Governing the knowledge commons: Hybrid relational–contractual governance in china’s mining industry
The gene regulation knowledge commons: the action area of GREEKC
Governance and human rights implications of ASEAN's Smart Cities Network: a knowledge commons analysis
Commons-Oriented, but Embodied Enough? De-Constructing Knowledge, Experiences, and Institutions in Naples’ Water Commons Project
📚 Books worth reading
Understanding Knowledge as a CommonsCharlotte Hess, Elinor Ostrom · 2006
Virginia Woolf's Common readerKaterina Koutsantoni · 2009
Thomas Aquinas and the Civil Economy TraditionPaolo Santori · 2021
When Everyone Knows That Everyone KnowsSteven Pinker · 2025
Common Sense and Science from Aristotle to ReidBenjamin W. Redekop · 2020- 📕Common KnowledgeMoira Cockell, Moira Cockell · 2011
- 📕Mathematics and Common SensePhilip J. Davis · 2006
- 📕Thomas Reid and the Problem of Secondary QualitiesChristopher A. Shrock · 2017
Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.
🔗 Related topics
- Open source Open source is the practice of publishing digital resources publicly alongside their source code or source files, enabling use, study, modification, and…
- Free license A free license or open license is a license that allows copyrighted work to be reused, modified, and redistributed. These uses are normally prohibited…
- Software license A software license is a legal instrument governing the use or redistribution of software. Since the 1970s, software copyright has been recognized in the…
- Free content Free content, libre content, or open content (also called free information, libre information, open information) is any kind of creative work, such as…
- Copyleft Copyleft is the legal technique of granting certain freedoms over copies of copyrighted works with the requirement that the same rights be preserved in…
- Free-culture movement The free-culture movement is a social movement that promotes the freedom to distribute and modify the creative works of others in the form of free content…
- Information commons An information commons is an information system, such as a physical library or online community, that exists to produce, conserve, and preserve information…
- Open-source license Open-source licenses are software licenses that allow content to be used, modified, and shared. They facilitate free and open-source software (FOSS) development…