The ideas for the Genome Commons were developed over some time and first formally penned after news stories about the Watson and Venter genomes were published in early June 2007. The writing has gone through several iterations including the following significant variations:

• First distributable version [PDF]. This has the earliest presentation of the Genome Commons ideas suitable for redistribution, but it was deemed too technical for a broad readership.
• One-page version [PDF]. This is the most honed version of the Genome Commons musings, and it is my personal favorite version.
• Nature commentary. This is the commentary published in Nature magazine. At the request of Nature’s editors, the one-page version’s text was hastily doubled in length to provide additional details and motivation. The piece was also subject to numerous editorial changes including the title and subheads.
• Amalgamated version [PDF]. Along the way to the final Nature commentary version, much text was written and then discarded. This version aims to collect all the scraps from the cutting-room floor and integrate them into the most comprehensive presentation. This version includes the original comprehensive table for the piece. Due to major organizational changes in the text and intervening edits, not all of the pieces flow sensibly in this version.

Unless otherwise noted, materials hosted on this website are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution License.

I am indebted to many people who provided feedback on previous versions including especially Steven P. Ketchpel and Kathleen Maclay, who each commented on several versions; Sarah Tomlin and Chris Simms, the editor and subeditor at Nature; and members of my research group including Eric Odell who created this website and Robin Peters who provided invaluable technical assistance. Phil Andrews generously provided the GenomeCommons.org website; check out his ProteomeCommons resource. Funding to create this site is provided primarily by the University of California, Berkeley with limited support from a Sloan Research Fellowship. I have been supported as a Professor of the Miller Institute at UC Berkeley.