ABSTRACT
This chapter reveals the integral connection between processes of free software development and community building as constituent elements of the commons. These collaborative processes simultaneously create and require shared resources and skills in technological development, documentation, translation, and more. The chapter highlights some of those social dilemmas by exploring the importance of free software communities in governing and sustaining the shared resource of the digital commons, as well as the technical development of free software itself. Sustaining such a community is challenging in the context of neoliberal pressures to integrate proprietary practices to compete in capitalist markets. Certification programs have unique potential to contribute to the development of free software communities, as well as to the broader construction of the digital commons. Such programs give developers a formal opportunity for training, to improve their skills and enhance the pace and quality of their professional development.
