Anyone interested in Libre software will be interested in the question of what leads to success and failure of Libre projects. This paper marks the beginning of a five-year research program, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, to identify design principles that lead to successful Libre software development efforts. Recently, scholars have noted that Libre software projects can be considered a form of ‘commons’, producing software public goods. This connection is important, for a large body of theoretical and empirical findings exists related to long-enduring environmental commons which could also apply to and inform Libre software projects. Institutions – defined here as rules-in-use – are a central set of variables known to influence the ultimate outcome of commons settings (e.g., long-enduring commons or ones that succumb to what G. Hardin has called the “Tragedy of the Commons”). To date, we know relatively little about the institutional designs of Libre projects and how they evolve. This paper presents an oft-used framework for analyzing the institutional designs of environmental commons settings that will guide upcoming empirical research on Libre software projects. It presents a trajectory of these projects and discusses ways to measure their success and failure. The paper closes by presenting example hypotheses to be tested related to institutional attributes of these projects.