[en] We present a method to quantize SU(N) gauge theories which does not use gauge fixing, and therefore circumvents the problematics around gauge fixing and Gribov copying. The method is illustrated in the Abelian theory where no Gribov ambiguity is present, and it is shown to be equivalent to Landau gauge fixing in this case. It is shown that there are fundamental differences between Abelian and non-Abelian theories. These differences imply that in Abelian theories the gauge particle must be massless, but this is not necessarily true in non-Abelian theories