The collective body of created content, data, and other information accessible and usable as a shared resource for the good of all.
Placing something in the KnowledgeCommons usually signifies your intention to make contributions available for use, distribution, and modification by all, and to prevent appropriation of your contributions by any person or entity.
Items in the KnowledgeCommons may not be truly open as defined here, as there may be restrictions on accessibility (the knowledge may be common to a select audience), or have conditions on distribution and usage.
Those who encourage contributions to the KnowledgeCommons (Such as The Open Knowledge Foundation) cite that freer access to information will have far-reaching social and commercial benefits, such as enhanced opportunities for innovation. Additionally, it is possible that unlike a limited resource, increased use and availability of knowledge increases its value rather than leading to a TragedyOfTheCommons.
Property rights and the concept of open / free content contributions are critical when considering the participation of individuals trying to solve problems. Participation from individuals may take the form of ideas, designs, proposals, documents or other creative content that is possible to control in many ways:
These controls may also be held by different entities, including, but not necessarily the individual contributor.
Property rights and ownership of control can play a very important role in how individual contributors may be motivated (or not motivated) to participate in the problem-solving process. For example, problem-solving environments such as Innocentive obtain all exclusive property rights on individual contributions. This may play an important role in incenting user participation, since environments like this obtain property rights in exchange for a chance at compensation.
Alternatively, many problem-solving environments (such as this wiki), license contributions under a creative commons license, such as Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. Open distribution or commons licensing can be beneficial for the following possible reasons: