Doc Searls's blog

Why is it that Linux distros divide and multiply? And do we have a better name for how and why that's done than, say, "forking"? more>>

Tristan Louis gives weight to new term that I like a lot: fauxpen. Faux in French means "false" or "fake". So fauxpen means fake open. There has always been a lot of that going around, but since the world of tech inevitably contains more of everything, there's more fauxpen stuff than ever. more>>

What sounds like DRM is really a cool open source journalism tool. more>>

Drew Clark's Broadband Census is a worthy effort: find out what Internet connection speeds people actually get, vs. what's promised. more>>

In the Linux and FOSS worlds we've been complaining for decades about vendor lock-in, platform and service silos, walled gardens and other annoyances. So now I'm wondering what scholarship has been devoted to these practices. more>>

Has anybody noticed that TV is no longer an over-the-air medium? more>>

So Oracle bought Sun. Aside from the usual vendor sports stories (IBM lost this one), what's the deal here for Linux and other open source fixtures in both Sun's and Oracle's portfolios? What happens to MySQL? What happens to Java? How about Solaris? You tell us. more>>

I never liked the terms "upload" and "download". I think "inload" and "outload" might be better, just because they don't carry implications of subordination or unequal required effort.

As it happens most of our home connections are asymmetrical: much higher coming in than going out. more>>

Why is FREE! the world's best-selling noun, verb, adjective and adverb, yet so hard to credit as a foundation for business in the Internet Age? And what will happen when business folk finally grok the abundant opportunities that FREE! provides? more>>

The time has come to re-define "parties" in business.

In software, "third parties" have always been accessories to supply more than to demand, because their job in most cases was to add value to a vendor's platform. But growth in customer power will invite a new kind of software and service into the marketplace: a kind that adds value to the customer's platform and weight to the customer's side of the market's equation. What do we call that new kind of software, and the kinds of companies that put it to use? more>>