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Aug 06 2011

Thank You, Tim Berners-Lee

Posted by Dan Gillmor in People, tags: , ,

Twenty years ago today, Tim Berners-Lee posted this announcement on Usenet (the main Internet forums of the day). The key line:

“The WorldWideWeb (WWW) project aims to allow links to be made to any information anywhere.”

Berners-Lee didn’t just give this to the world. He deliberately declined to patent this work, because he wanted wide adoption of his invention and believed in a culture of open, not closed.

We are all in his debt.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 6th, 2011 at 10:25 am and is filed under People. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

2 Responses to “Thank You, Tim Berners-Lee”
  1. Rick McKnight says:
    August 15, 2011 at 10:19 am

    Actually, British Telecommunications (BT) claimed it owned a patent to hyperlinks, which it filed back in 1976 and was granted in 1989. They even demanded from several Internet service providers that they pay licensing fees on hyperlinks.

    http://www.linksandlaw.com/linkingcases-other.htm#British Telecom v. Prodigy

  2. Patricia Sullivan says:
    August 17, 2011 at 3:20 am

    Hear, hear. Tim Berners-Lee doesn’t get enough credit for his brilliant creation. I add my thanks here.

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