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Tim Berners-Lee Attains Knighthood

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the looks-good-on-a-resume dept.

sandalwood writes "Tim Berners-Lee has been promoted to Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire for coming up with that 'intarweb' thing we all use. Characteristically modest, he said that he was an ordinary person who created something that 'just happened to work out.' He will join luminaries like Isaac Newton, Francis Drake, and... Mick Jagger."

2 of 539 comments (clear)

  1. What if... by FlashpointWork · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One wonders where we would be today with the WWW if Tim had chosen to patent his invention?

  2. The key to his success: he made it free by dgerman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    During the early 90's his research was put down by other Hypermedia researchers. Their view: "we've been there, done that; your implementation is too simple, too restrictive; our research is towards two directional linking..., other systems before you are better...". His first paper was rejected by the Hypertext Conference in 1991, and he settled for a demo table in the same venue.

    The key to his success is that he made it simple and free (as in beer)! Others, like Nelson's Xanadu, were too ambitious. Others, like Hypercards, Hypernotes, Hyperdisco, etc were never free.

    The BBC article highlights that in one of the side boxes: "Offered free on the Net".