TECHNOLOGY-FACILITATED
‘GIVE ACCORDING TO
YOUR ABILITIES, RECEIVE
ACCORDING TO
YOUR NEEDS’
Software, hardware, computer networks, and online content all
require mechanisms to prevent free riding, overuse of common resources,
use of resources without consent, and blocking of resource access.

Information technology, especially the Internet, facilitates the production, distribution, and consumption of products and services by increasingly following the principle of “Give according to your abilities, receive according to your needs,” or GARN. Users contribute nonmonetary resources (such as programming skills, computing power, and network access) to a resource pool and draw similar resources from it. All this is done in return for no monetary reward, and giving or receiving can be at a level of zero; that is, users receive without giving or give without receiving. The GARN phenomenon is manifest in at least four contexts:

Software. Volunteer-based open-source software (OSS) initiatives (such as Linux) where code is created by volunteers and made available to the public;

Hardware. Organizational, interorganizational, and organizational/private grid computing initiatives (such as SETI@home, setiath-ome.berkeley.edu);

Networks. Wireless access points for wireless devices (primarily in urban areas); and

Content. Asset-based content contribution (such as P2P file-sharing systems) and knowledge-based content contribution (such as Wikipedia).

By Oded Nov and Bharat Rao