----- 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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------