Posted on 07/17/2004 5:15:24 PM PDT by Roy Tucker
LONDON (AP) - The father of the World Wide Web was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and said his revolutionary invention was the result of being in the right place at the right time.
"I suppose it's amazing when you think how many things people get involved in that don't work. It's very heartening that this one actually did," said Tim Berners-Lee, who was accompanied to the Buckingham Palace investiture by his wife and two children on Friday.
But he added: "I'm very aware I was in the right place at the right time."
While working at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory near Geneva in the late 1980s, Berners-Lee developed the architecture of the Internet - the Web system of servers and browsers - which he distributed free of charge.
He has worked ever since to ensure the Web remains public domain.
"The Web must remain a universal medium open to all and not biasing the information it conveys," he said.
His knighthood, for services to the Internet, was announced by Buckingham Palace last December.
British-born Berners-Lee, who is now based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said members of the royal family were no technophobes.
"I think the family are pretty knowledgeable about it," he said. "I've met the Duke (of Edinburgh) before and he was well aware of the history of IT."
Yes, although I thought the US Air Force invented the early proto-type of the web.
Gore was heard bellowing, "The Queen has betrayed this country!"
Ah, another Monty Python fan. Very good indeed.
Might want to be careful using their stuff on FR.
The defense department, I believe. I am not exactly a tech guy, so to pretend I understand it all would be a farce.
Not so bright posters? Just as there are some pompous asses here, who name call to give themselves a feeling of superiority.
Aw, I'm probably just cranky cause I feel that the "web", with the exception of URL's (and that wasn't a great leap) had been around and I'm kinda funny about original stuff vs. making stuff better. I'm not capable of really original work, I can stand on someone elses shoulders and sometimes make it better but I recognize it for what it is.
Take Leonard Kleinrock. AFAIK he pulled the concept of packets out of the ether. Very few people know his name. Without him there wouldn't have been a platform for the web. Now there was a leap.
So pardon my whatever and in fact B-L and I have one award in common but when I accepted it I made sure that I mentioned the name of everyone that had done the original work and the fact that I took their efforts and simply hacked them. No false modesty, just the truth.
Or maybe I'm just bitter I didn't get a knighthood (hehe).
Here's a good history page:
http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/
If you don't want to read all the links check out the two both titled "A brief history of the Internet" and the "World Wide Web..." by Tim Berners-Lee.
We all stand on the shoulders of giants. IP was stacked on top of other protocols. HTML was stcked on top of all that. It's the WWW that made the internet popular. Before that, only the ubergeeks had ever heard of the internet.
How DARE she!!!!!!
Very witty!
LOL!
Thanks much.
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