POSTSCRIPT ON CONTRIBUTION SOCIETIES

The principle of free and open source software production - that users will identify bugs and needed features and contribute code as a common resource - actually seems to work, and work beyond the limited sphere of software programming. People contribute videos on YouTube; contribute T-shirt designs and ratings on Threadless; contribute entries and up to the minute updates on Wifypedia; contribute to the marketing of bands, films, books, political candidates by sharing, linking, and liking them on Facebook; contribute images on Flickr; contribute artwork and music and poetry with Creative Commons licenses; contribute endless commentary, opinions, fan fiction, breaking news, and survey data on Twitter, on blogs, and on news sites; and so on.