Tim Berners-Lee built the World Wide Web at a physics laboratory, then persuaded his employer to release it into the public domain in 1993 with no fee and no patent. He could have owned the doorway to the internet.

Tim Berners-Lee (b. 1955)

TechnologyHistory

Why it matters

The idea in context

He wrote the first browser, the first server and the language pages are still written in, to solve a mundane problem: physicists at CERN could not easily share documents. His argument for giving it away was practical as much as moral — a web that anyone had to pay or ask permission to build on would simply not have grown. Competing systems of the era charged licence fees, and are forgotten. He has since spent much of his career arguing that the thing he built has become too centralised.

Türkçe

Aynı kart, başka bir dilde.

Tim Berners-Lee, World Wide Web'i bir fizik laboratuvarında kurdu, sonra işverenini 1993'te onu ücretsiz ve patentsiz olarak kamuya bırakmaya ikna etti. İnternetin kapısının sahibi olabilirdi.
Tim Berners-Lee (d. 1955)

İlk tarayıcıyı, ilk sunucuyu ve sayfaların hâlâ yazıldığı dili, sıradan bir sorunu çözmek için yazdı: CERN'deki fizikçiler belgeleri kolayca paylaşamıyordu. Onu bedava vermek için öne sürdüğü gerekçe ahlaki olduğu kadar pratikti — üzerine bir şey kurmak için para ya da izin gereken bir ağ zaten büyümezdi. Dönemin rakip sistemleri lisans ücreti alıyordu ve unutuldular. O günden beri kariyerinin büyük bölümünü, kurduğu şeyin fazla merkezileştiğini savunarak geçirdi.

Source trail

Read beyond the card.

Background reading: Tim Berners-LeeAttribution and context are revised when stronger evidence appears. Corrections are welcome through the editorial page.
Next in the open archiveWhen Jonas Salk was asked on television who held the patent to his polio vaccine, he answered that the people did — and asked whether you could patent the sun. Polio had been paralysing tens of thousands of children a year.Q1672