Commons-Based
Peer Production

Commons-Based Peer Production (CBPP) is a method of production. Commons are shared resources that are managed by their producers. This is often knowledge, but it can also be physical goods. Peer production is the production by equal peers, i.e. producing persons. CBPP stands for the production of self-managed resources by equal producers.

Open Knowledge

In its basic definition, CBPP contradicts the classic explanatory approaches of economics and yet many CBPP-based goods have already found their way into everyday life, for example in the form of software.

CBPP usually means that the value creation process is open to everyone who can contribute to a product. The knowledge of all participants is pooled and shared free of charge. Collaboration in CBPP projects therefore often takes place via incentives other than financial ones.

Economic
Potential

The economic potential of CBPP is nevertheless great. It is achieved through the global pooling of development resources. Since the entry threshold for peers is low and many of them can work on a joint product without being tied to a specific location, a great deal of production power is brought together without the need for large amounts of capital.

Kooperation
Laser cutter

Technology that people want

Utility value for the community is a driver for such value creation. CBBP is the roadmap for the New Production Institute in building open source technologies.

“Technology that people really want” has long been a guiding principle in the development of new products. The collaborative approach of the New Production Institute is based on swarm intelligence, citizen participation, and the development of the theory of collaborative value creation.

Surveys at the Laboratory of Production Engineering of Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg have shown: Open labs can have a significant influence on factors that promote innovation and invention. This result has already been successfully translated into practice on several occasions.

Goal and result

A central goal of the New Production Institute projects is to use CBPP to support the introduction and development of open fabrication and open source hardware laboratories, i.e. open labs. These are to function as education, qualification, and innovation incubators in cooperation with local universities, research institutions, companies, and communities – i.e. tinkerers, start-ups, and citizens.

One outcome of this should be empowerment, i.e. equipping people at the local level with the knowledge, skills, and necessary technical means to participate in local and global sustainable value creation processes.