----- Original Message ----- From: <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2001 4:34 AM Subject: Happy 10th birthday to the World Wide Web > Culled from Silicon > **************************************************************************Th anks > to the endeavour of a few, millions benefit. This is truly what brotherhood > or mankind is all about? Happy birthday, world-wide-web. > Dave > ************************************************************************* > > > Hasn't it aged well... > > Ten years ago today, on 6 August 1991, the initial sketches of a system designed > to publish universal information on the internet went public, to a very mixed > welcome. > > Two engineers at Switzerland's nuclear research laboratory Cern, Tim Berners-Lee > and his colleague Robert Cailliau, had conceived of a hypertext system which > would allow information in any language or form to be shared across the world. > > > > > The web - a million miles from the vision. Read on... > > > During 1991 they were preoccupied with selling the idea to their taskmasters > at Cern, and it wasn't until the plans hit the alternative newsgroup, alt.hypertext, > that the significance of the world wide web began to dawn. > Cailliau told silicon.com today: "The internet crowd very much believed they > were ruling the world on the net... They had very adamant and strange views > on how it should be done." > > Many criticised Berners-Lee and Cailliau for inventing yet another mark-up language > (something they hadn't in fact done), while others called for an independent > browser to be developed to check their specifications were correct. > > "There were always people who were positive," Cailliau said. "It's thanks to > them that it actually grew and became what we know today." > > In an interview with silicon.com last year, Tim Berners-Lee, now a professor > at MIT and director of W3C, remembered the contribution early internet users > made to the system. > > "It started off with me and my boss saying 'why not?', but basically no great > encouragement and no budget from above. [Then] a lot of other people across > the world, reading an email or looking at a newsgroup, saying: 'That could be > really interesting I think I'll install one of these web servers before I go > home," Berners-Lee said. > > "There was a great variety of people all operating independently, but driven > by the same idea of changing the world. To look back on that is pretty neat." > > > For Cailliau, the most lasting memory of 1991 is the struggle to convince people > that the WWW could be successful. "It was very difficult to spread the word," > he said. "You've got to have something in the other person's brain to hang your > idea on - and people had no concept of a truly global system." > > For both Berners-Lee and Cailliau the struggle continues. "We are still not > using computers for what we could be," said Cailliau. "I'm glad the internet > took off, but I would have liked it to take off in another direction." > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------