Inventing the Innovation Commons

"The Internet is both the result of and the enabling infrastructure for new ways of organizing collective action via communication technology. This new social contract enables the creation and maintenance of public goods, a commons for knowledge resources."

"Before the word "hacker" was misappropriated to describe people who break into computer systems, the term was coined (in the early 1960s) to describe people who create computer systems. The first people to call themselves hackers were loyal to an informal social contract called "the hacker ethic." As Steven Levy described it, this ethic include these principles:

• Access to computers should be unlimited and total.
• Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative
• All information should be free.
• Mistrust authority - promote decentralization."

Howard Rheingold
Smart Mobs
Basic Books, 2002