J. D. Lasica has reposted Doug Kaye's e-mail message announcing a shift to commons-based peer production (open source) at IT Conversations. I'm glad to see things going this way. IT Conversations is a great resource - it is a great way to access some really thought provoking content.

As I read Doug's mail (I'm not subscribed to the right list) I saw something else. I saw a great example of how a community can form around a passion, resulting in commons-based peer-production. The commons in this case is the IT Conversations audio, which is licensed under a Creative Commons License, and the peer production is ramping up via Team ITC. Here's Doug's description of how it happened.

It began when IT Conversations listeners pressured me into
creating a tip jar on the site, which I did a few months ago,
and the tips have trickled in steadily ever since. Next, other
producers started to submit audio recordings, hoping they'd be
published on IT Conversations. Most weren't good enough (due to
poor content or audio quality), but some shows like Stowe
Boyd's True Voice and Rob Greenlee's Web Talk made the cut and
have proven to be very popular on the site. Then I put out the
word for help on the software-development side -- to date, I've
written all the code myself -- and immediately heard from three
top-notch programmers that wanted to help.

But I didn't stop there, because I also had audio experts and
writers who got in touch and said they wanted to help, too. So
it finally occurred to me that *this* is what listener-
supported audio was all about. I had added that tag line to the
web site when I posted the tip jar, but I've since learned that
among the nearly 80,000 unique IT Conversations listeners each
month, there are hundreds who not only enjoy what we've done,
but are downright passionate about it. In other words: IT
Conversations has become a community of people whose lives it
has affected.