BACKGROUND
Digitalization leads to a re-institutionalization of research and economic activities, where informational common resources play an ever-increasing role in economic growth. Especially in the case of the biological sciences and the bioeconomy, informational commons arrangements, such as public biobanks and free/libre open source software (FLOSS), are of paramount importance. However, it has been argued that such arrangements are vulnerable to violations such as the free-riding problem that renders them unsustainable. Consequently, it has been argued, the enclosure of the informational common resources is the only means to effectively exploit them.
OBJECTIVE
Given the social and economic importance of the informational commons, the new digital environment requires a regulation of their social embedment that will guarantee their protection from both violations and enclosures, i.e., a new political economy is needed. In this context, the need for a core common infrastructure, stretching from the physical to the logical and content layer of the information environment, has been highlighted.
METHODS
Focusing on the interaction between two biological commons, namely public biobanks and the free/libre open source software, we have set up an ecosystem using a blockchain-based technology. The proposed ecosystem consists of four components: the FLOSS (library), the applications that use FLOSS, the biobanks that have the data requested from the applications and the source validators. The latter act as the computing nodes of the blockchain: they keep track of the different versions of the FLOSS maintained by the various applications, and provide the validation check on whether the version of the FLOSS used by an application is registered with the ecosystem. Prior to gain access to the data, the application needs to get the version identifier key of the library it is using.
RESULTS
The proposed regulatory mechanism protects the informational commons from the free-riding problem and guarantees their sustainability without hampering their operational framework. Our model demonstrates the interdependence and protection of the informational commons not as an abstracted theoretical exercise, but rather as a physical reality on the ontological matrix.
CONCLUSIONS
Blockchain-based technologies can be used in cases where informational commons interact with each other over digital networks, protecting them from the free-riding problem and securing their sustainability. In this sense, it has far-reaching implications as it could serve as a generic law in the new political economy of the digital era.
Protecting the Informational Commons using a Blockchain-based Technology: The case of Free/Libre Open Source Software and Public Biobanks (Preprint)