According to Aaron Krowne of the Free Software Magazine, a Commons-Based Peer Production (CBPP) "refers to any coordinated, (chiefly) internet-based effort whereby volunteers contribute project components, and there exists some process to combine them to produce a unified intellectual work. CBPP covers many different types of intellectual output, from software to libraries of quantitative data to human-readable documents (manuals, books, encyclopedias, reviews, blogs, periodicals, and more)."

Yale´s Law proffesor Yochai Benkler made a detailed study of this form of production, comparing it to a third, akin to Firm production (where a centralized decision process decides what has to be done and by whom) and Market based Production (when tagging diferent prices to different jobs serves as an attractor to anyone interested in doing the job). As examples, he cites free software, Nasa clickworkers, Slashdot and Wikipedia.

References

• Krowne, Aaron (March 1, 2005). "The FUD based encyclopedia: Dismantling the Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt aimed at Wikipedia and other free knowledge sources". Free Software Magazine.

• The Penguin´s Coase or Linux and The nature of the firm a paper by yochai benkler defining what is, and how Commons-Based Peer Production works, along with a long study of what motivates contributor.