Abstract

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is one of the most powerful examples of the digital commons. Its success, however, depends increasingly on private companies engaging in its use and development, although its regime of property undermines the possibility of privately appropriating its value. Yet, this hybridization between FOSS and new forms of capitalism remains insufficiently explored in commons studies. To offer an interpretative explanation, this article analyses two paradigmatic cases, Linux and Android. They are presented as following two different models: Linux as a solution that emerged from the management of a common infrastructure; Android as a weapon in a competitive strategy. By analysis of the two cases, a series of conceptual tools is proposed, with the aim of improving our capacity to visualize the co-existence of different regimes of property in the same resource system and to understand how this stratification can be strategically modulated. In the conclusions some insights are suggested to frame future research on the logic behind the re-emerging of the commons in network and information economies.