"Digital commons" refers to a concept that envisages the management and use of digital resources as common property.

Elinor Ostrom, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics, laid the widely recognized theoretical foundations for understanding the collective management and use of common goods in her magnum opus "Governing the Commons," based on many years of empirical research. Due to their characteristics as non-rivalrous ("non-subtractive") intangible resources, data, programs and their descriptions, as well as other digital artifacts, are predestined for management and use as common-pool resources.

The management and use of digital resources as common goods is an alternative to privatization or nationalization and, in a free and democratic environment, a socio-political decision made by the actors involved and affected. Noteworthy in this context is the publication of the report "Towards a sovereign digital infrastructure of commons"by the European Working Team on Digital Commons in June 2022 during the French EU Presidency. It underscores the strategic importance of commons for Europe's digital sovereignty.