Sir Tim Berners-Lee Lauded For Web Efforts

crem_d_genes writes "The first Millenium Technology Prize to be given by the Finnish Technology Award Foundation has been awarded to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the 'Father of the Web', for his work in creating the hypertext program that would come to change the way in which scientists, and later the general public would access data over the internet. The rest is history."

Comments

Some kind of mistake?

[dolo666]

This must be some kind of mistake? Al Gore invented the web, because it says so right here: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet" - Al Gore

Re:Some kind of mistake?

[Mwongozi]

Your quote is out of context

Re:Some kind of mistake?

[MonTemplar]

No offence, but that gag has been round the block waaay too many times to qualify for a +1 Funny.

Of course, once Star Wars Ep3 arrives, we'll have to endure another round of Natalie Portman + Hot Grits with every other post... :-)

-MT.

Re:Some kind of mistake?

[Himring]

"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet" - Al Gore

Al Gore did not creat the Internet. He did, however, sleep at a holiday inn express....

Re:Some kind of mistake?

[ideatrack]

If you're dispairing about that, just wait until this decends into an argument about which country invented what. And then into the fact that one or other argument is one the Nazi's would have used. Or something...

Re:Some kind of mistake?

[Anonymous Coward]

Claim: Vice-President Al Gore claimed that he "invented" the Internet.

Status: False.

Origins: No,
Al Gore did not claim he "invented" the Internet, nor did he say anything that could reasonably be interpreted that way. The derisive "Al Gore said he 'invented' the Internet" put-downs are misleading distortions of something he said (taken out of context) during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN's "Late Edition" program on 9 March 1999. When asked to describe what distinguished him from his challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Gore replied (in part):

During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

Clearly, although Gore's phrasing was clumsy (and self-serving), he was not claiming that he "invented" the Internet (in the sense of having designed or implemented it), but that he was responsible for helping to create I also invented the microphone the environment (in an economic and legislative sense) that fostered the development of the Internet. Al Gore might not know nearly as much about the Internet and other technologies as his image would have us believe, and he certainly has been guilty of stretching (if not outright breaking) the truth before, but to believe that Gore seriously thought he could take credit for the "invention" of the Internet -- in the sense offered by the media -- is just silly. (To those who say the words "create" and "invent" mean the same thing: If they mean the same thing, then why have the media overwhelmingly and consistently cited Gore as having claimed he "invented" the Internet when he never used that word? The answer is that the words don't mean the same thing, but by substituting one word for the other, commentators can make Gore's claim sound [more] ridiculous.)

However, validating even the lesser claim Gore intended to make is problematic. Any statement about the "creation" or "beginning" of the Internet is difficult to evaluate, because the Internet is not a homogenous entity (it's a collection of computers, networks, protocols, standards, and application programs), nor did it all spring into being at once (the components that comprise the Internet were developed in various places at different times and are continuously being modified, improved, and expanded). Despite a spirited defense of Gore's claim by Vint Cerf (often referred to as the "father of the Internet") in which he stated "that as a Senator and now as Vice President, Gore has made it a point to be as well-informed as possible on technology and issues that surround it," many of the components of today's Internet came into being well before Gore's first term in Congress began in 1977, and it's hard to find any specific action of Gore's (such as his sponsoring a Congressional bill or championing a particular piece of legislation) that one could claim helped bring the Internet into being, much less validate Gore's statement of having taken the "initiative in creating the Internet."

It's true that Gore was popularizing the term "information superhighway" in the early 1990s (when few people outside academia or the computer/defense industries had heard of the Internet) and has introduced a few bills dealing with education and the Internet, but even though Congressman, Senator, and Vice-President Gore may always have been interested in and well-informed about information technology issues, that's a far cry from having taken an active, vital leadership role in bringing about those technologies. Even if Al Gore had never entered the political arena, we'd probably still be reading web pages via the Internet today.

Last updated: 27 September 2000

The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.htm

Re:Some kind of mistake?

[Retric]

I don't know if that's funny or sad. The web is a small part of the Internet. And all he said was he "took the initiative" which could mean many things.
Such as seemed like a good idea to me so I gave them some money to set it up. Which is what I think he was talking about.
The hyper links / the web was a fairly old idea HTML is really a bastard son of STML which only missed out on hyper links because people did not want to add it to there existing code base. TextMarkupLanguages use 'Bracket' tag'endBracket' (stuff) 'Bracket'/tag'endBracket' as an extension of STML.
Anyway, the real idea behind the web was to write a free reader and a standard that read it as a solution to communication between dif people. Think PDF's the reader is free and useful so there a standard even tough it's not really an open standard. Which has nothing to do with the creation of the internet.

So next time you read that quote rember what's funny is people laughing at it not what he said. Ok Ok mabe he should have asumed most people would be like my parent and the people who modded it funny and not said it in the first place. But, I tend to forgive people who underestimate stupidity for it's endless.

Re:Some kind of mistake?

[MonTemplar]

That's easy. People invent things. Countries either a) try and take the credit for it, or b) balls up the patent application, allowing someone else to take the credit.

-MT.

Re:Some kind of mistake?

[RichM]

Surely you are referring to SGML, not "STML"?

Re:Some kind of mistake?

[pavogel_2000]

I'm one of those people who prefers to give Al Gore the benefit of the doubt. As a member of congress Gore was one of those who voted FOR the continued funding of a variety of initiatives that helped fund the research and development of technologies that make up a fairly significant % of what the layman calls "the internet" today. Further, I don't think anyone can ignore the fact that Al's popularization and use of the term "Information Superhighway" is a *significant part* of what took the web from the province of those of us working in science and technology into the mainstream. Consider: In 1992 (the campaign year the Info Superhighway term was used) to send mail to a friend at *cough* MicroSoft I had to supply!a!fully!qualified!path!to!microsoft!friend (or whatever the syntax was). MS did *not* have a web site. Few people even in the computer industry knew what Mosaic was (I was one of the first in my company of 1200 to download it after someone at OSF showed it to me). Gopher and FTP were the primary means of finding and retrieving resources on the internet. By 1994 we were beginning to count the # of TV commercials that included a pointer to a web site. By 1996 "the web" was a household term. I don't think things would have moved that fast without Al Gore's bringing it to the mainstream, leading to articles in Time, Newsweek, etc. Now -- the real debate -- was it a "good" thing for the web to hit the mainstream like that? Without that accelleration we may not have had the bubble and things could have grown at a more natural pace. Spam might not be as attractive as a vehicle for advertisement and therefore would be less of a problem (there certainly was VERY LITTLE spam between 1985 (the first year I used the net) and 1997 (the first time I saw significant junk in my public mail accounts). Was Al stupid in the way he phrased himself? Yes. Was his intent to claim he "invented" the internet? I don't think so. Was his intent to say he "popularized" the internet? Possibly. Peter+

Re:Some kind of mistake?

[bombadillo]

The Internet Society also mentions Al Gore in their history timeline. You have to give credit to Al Gore for taking the initiative from a political stand point. The creation of the Internet was a huge project that needed the cooperation of Universities, Businesses and Government. Projects of that scale always need a Politician to champion the cause to get funding and grants. Did Al Gore use an unfortunate choice of words? Yes.

Re:Some kind of mistake?

[Anonymous Coward]

Al Gore invented the web, because it says so right here: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet

You ignorant dolo! Al Gore invented the Internet, and on top of that, Tim whateveritwas invented the Web. Web runs on Internet; or sometimes on AOL. There is no contradiction there.

HTH.

Re:Some kind of mistake?

[Himring]

This is exactly like Montgomery claiming to have single-handedly beaten back the Germans during the "battle of the bulge" when he said, "it was one of the toughest fights I've had" -- or something along those lines -- in a press conference. Did he actually say, "I single-handedly beat back the Germans?" No. But he failed to mention his "team" in that conference -- he failed to even mention the Americans. It was _the_same_as saying, "I single-handedly beat back the Germans." Ike was none-to-pleased with the whole affair and if I remember correctly Montgomery had to apologize.

Now, if we go the same route this is where those of same-political alignment dissect and pick-apart what Montgomery actually did and said, but the fact remains: when discussing what a team, or group did in a project, you never say friggin "I" unless you are wanting credit for the whole project.

It's apparent to me, anyhow, that Gore's "invention of the Internet" claim is far more a blatant self-aggrandizement than what Montgomery did....

Am "I" the only one who works in the corporate world?....

Re:Some kind of mistake?

[UserGoogol]

Bang paths in 1992? I'm pretty sure that's as nonsensical as the fact that I had to learn a subset of EBCDIC in High School "computer technologies" class. (And I'm still in High School.) TCP/IP and DNS were pretty well implemented by 1992.

question

[Anonymous Coward]

Does Tim Berners-Lee have his own website?

Re:question

[NekoXP]

www.w3.org isn't good enough for you?

http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/

Re:question

[Mwongozi]

Does Tim Berners-Lee have his own website?

Yes he does

Re:question

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting, seems Timmy likes his Windows enviroment, but doesn't like the office software:-

Email is safe unless it contains programs. (Data and documents are fine, programs are not). If you send me a program, I will not run it, as it could damage my system and could be a virus.

* Note: Documents for Microsoft word, Excel, and possibly other Office programs tend to execute programs (scripts) in what you would expect to be harmless documents. These can expose my machine to viruses, because these programs do not (it seems) prevent scripts from running within a document when it received by email. Please do not send me Microsoft Office documents.

* If you are sending text, please send it as plain text or HTML. If you use your favorite word process, slide tool, etc, and send it in that program's format, then you are forcing me install proprietary software on whatever machine I read them on. .

* If your email is sent from Microsoft Outlook, and contains an attachment, I will be more likely to discard it as I understand that a famous series of viruses in 2001 resulted from Outlook's tendency to execute scripts in email, and used up a huge amount of my and my colleague's time.

Sounds like a classic 'Switch' campaign to me.

Re:question

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows that Al Gore is the father of the internet.

Re:question

[zonker]

Well, considering that he did most of his web development on a NeXT box, I think it would be safe to say that he was ahead of the rest in the way of 'Switching'...

The missing step

[Mwongozi]

He won a million euros out of this.

1. Invent HTML
2. Wait 13 years
3. Profit!

Re:The missing step

[Trigun]

Although, he could have:

1. Work 13 years
2. Invest smartly and responsibly
3. Profit!

Although it's not as fun.

Re:The missing step

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, instead he's been wasting his time as a professor at MIT and heading the W3C. What a lazy asshole.

answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Yes he does.

almost as rich as a dot.commer

[peter303]

MIT prof Berners-Lee could have cashed in long ago as a web startup and gotten rich, but decided to develop his his dream without commercial taint. This $1.2 million prize, along with a few others he has won, helps compensate this sacrifice.

Re:almost as rich as a dot.commer

[Anonymous Coward]

You're correct...if he wins 100 more prizes of the same magnitude.

Re:almost as rich as a dot.commer

[Otter]

I dunno -- I was thinking the opposite. Rather than giving Berners-Lee yet another line for his resume and some more money to add to what I'm sure is a healthy stack, wouldn't it be more rewarding to do a little digging and find some unheralded individual making a vital contribution now? What has Berners-Lee done lately? (Yes, I know he's done something.)

It's their money, but these me-too awards always strike me as cheap and pointless.

By the way, did I hallucinate it or is Slashdot now running banner ads for a human cloning service claiming testimonials from the parents of resurrected children?!?

Re:almost as rich as a dot.commer

[RailGunner]

By the way, did I hallucinate it or is Slashdot now running banner ads for a human cloning service claiming testimonials from the parents of resurrected children?!?

The ads are for a movie about a human cloning service - the movie is called "Godsend" and it has Robert DeNiro, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, and Greg Kinnear in it.

Re:almost as rich as a dot.commer

[Otter]

Ahhh, OK. IHBT.

Re:almost as rich as a dot.commer

[JoScherl]

Would the WWW have bacame so important if it had been commercial? I think not.

Re:almost as rich as a dot.commer

[stephenbooth]

By the way, did I hallucinate it or is Slashdot now running banner ads for a human cloning service claiming testimonials from the parents of resurrected children?!?

Face it, they're at least as believable as the Microsoft ones. Microsoft: they have been weighed, they have been measured and they have been found most wanting.

Stephen

PS This isn't random Microsoft bashing. I have to evaluated their products. Some are good (a few would be excellent if the security holes were fixed), most are very, very poor IMHO.

Fantastic

[kedi]

...Linus Torvalds next ?

Re:Fantastic

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think Linus qualifies for a knighthood, which thankfully means that Billy Gates can't get one either. You have to be a British citizen for that, otherwise they would be giving them to all sorts of American idiots.

Re:Fantastic

[tomhudson]

You have to be a British citizen for that, otherwise they would be giving them to all sorts of American idiots.

Actually, you don't have to be British to receive a peerage appointment. Canadians have received them (though, in one recent well-publicized case (Conrad Black) the then-prime minister of Canada, Jean Chretien, blocked the appointment, so Black renounced his citizenship).

Americans, however, are barred, not by British law, but by American law.

Re:Fantastic

[nomadic]

American government officials are barred, I don't think the rest of us are, and congress can allow exceptions. However, I don't think (but I'm not sure) that under British law non-Commonwealth members are allowed to get the full knighthood with flourishes and title.

Re:Fantastic

[paulbd]

Too bad those laws didn't stop Ronald Reagan from accepting some kind of peerage from her majesty, eh?

Re:Fantastic

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect, you cannot get a British title without being a Commonwealth citien. Look at the BBC discussing Bill Gates' recent 'knighthood' http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3429589.stm

Re:Fantastic

[Polkyb]

British law allows the Queen to give the award to anyone she likes, however, you cannot use title 'Sir' unless you are a full British citizen (although you can still append KBE to your name).

Re:Fantastic

[PatOBan]

Linus is already financially secure thanks to some gratis shares from a grateful VA (and Red Hat?)

Re:Fantastic

[tomhudson]

Incorrect, you cannot get a British title without being a Commonwealth citien.

Last time I looked, us Canadians are members of the British Commonwealth, so the example I gave (Conrad Black) was valid :-)

Now if you had said "Let's get rid of Governor-General Adrian Clarkson and her spend-happy ways" I'd have agreed with you 100%.

Re:Fantastic

[Anonymous Coward]

U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 9:

No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.

The prohibition applies only to those who have a position in the federal government.

Re:Fantastic

[MozillaFireBird]

Not Linus. May be RMS. He's the one who started the whole damn thing.

Re:Fantastic

[Ctrl-Z]

The Canadian government resolved in 1919 to not allow Canadians to be granted knighthoods and peerages. See Nickle Resolution on Wikipedia.

Re:Fantastic

[tomhudson]

... Actually, that resolution has no actual force in law, it's just a resolution, like "we resolve to steal less money from the voters".

As it says later, this is just a policy, and one that is only enforced in rare occasions. The "enforcement" consists of asking the granting party (in this cas Britain) to please reconsider.

If Chretien hadn't intervened because of his personal fued with Black, Black would have been granted his peerage while still a Canadian citizen :-)

whatever jokes you guys make out of it

[Anonymous Coward]

He did make what the "web" is today, the fact that you're reading this now is down to him, he did something which is far easier to do now (though still not!) in a time when this sort of concept couldn't be comprehended.

Praise the guy.

Re:whatever jokes you guys make out of it

[jaoswald]

Actually, the most interesting thing is that the original proposal by Berners-Lee offers no hint of commercial applications.

E-commerce, or even advertising-based commercial sites like Slashdot, don't get any mention at all.

Re:whatever jokes you guys make out of it

[Mateito]

> Slashdot, don't get any mention at all.

Strip the prize then. He obvisouly doesn't deserve it.

How could this man be so short sited not to have predicted the existance of Slashdot 13 years ago?

I remember when back when I connected to fidonet through the 120baud modem on my apple IIc that I'd finish every newsboard post with "I'm only posting this here because Slashdot doesn't exist yet".

Where's _my_ fucking knighthood?

Re:whatever jokes you guys make out of it

[Anonymous Coward]

He did make what the "web" is today

No he didn't. Mosaic, Netscape, and Microsoft did.

Re:whatever jokes you guys make out of it

[HisMother]

> couldn't be comprehended

Uhh, yeah. Unless he had heard of Gopher/Archie/Veronica, at which point the WWW really becomes only an incremental improvement. Nobody creates something out of a vacuum. TBL was just, as is so often the case, in the right place at the right time.

Re:whatever jokes you guys make out of it

[MonTemplar]

No he didn't. Mosaic, Netscape, and Microsoft did.

Mosaic made the web browser.
Netscape mucked up the HTML specification.
Microsoft made the security holes.

Yep, they all played their part in making the World Wide Web what it is today. :-)

-MT.

Re:whatever jokes you guys make out of it

[Yarn]

Looks like someone's finally made a MegaHal bot that can post to Slashdot. Makes a change from one that just acts as an editor.

PS: I pasted the parent into a megahal and here is the result:

Does he want to fuck him in the vortex of an sg team while off world. It just couldn't be comprehended.

Which makes as much or possibly more sense.

Re:whatever jokes you guys make out of it

[jaoswald]

Just to be clear, I certainly admit that Berners-Lee deserves his knighthood.

I didn't expect him to make predictions of Slashdot, of course. My point is that the "Web as we know it" today is a lot broader than anything Berners-Lee mentioned in his original proposal. No one person gave us "the World-Wide Web" in the sense that we mean it today: Amazon, Google, blogs, pop-ups, movie trailers, Flash animations, ... Yes, he gave us the seed from which all those things grew. But did he know where it would lead? It would have taken an inhuman amount of foresight to do that.

It's very tricky to extrapolate back what people meant in an historical sense by *any* term in the past, even ones which are common today.

Re:whatever jokes you guys make out of it

[KjetilK]

Actually, he reads Slashdot, and he takes for granted that everybody knows what it is, just see the "Hall of Flame" at the end of this article.

Re:whatever jokes you guys make out of it

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, I don't know where you're getting your history from but many tech guys had been designing html and http-like systems for years. They didn't release anything though because they had moved onto considering 2-way links, and Berners was releasing established ideas.

He popularised them and he's a brilliant guy though for understanding that the 1-way vs 2-way was a ridiculous argument.

The web is not the internet

[tintub]

I know you were being funny, but thought I should point that out :)

jj

[Anonymous Coward]

Does Tim Berners-Lee have his own website?

No. He doesn't know HTML ;-)

Re:jj

[Himring]

No. He doesn't know HTML ;-)

He uses a mac....

Re:jj

[lostchicken]

Yeah, he used one to write his prototype browser and HTTP server. It was just called NeXTSTEP then.

IRC

[Cyuonut]

IMHO, they should have given the prize to Jarkko Oikarinen for creating IRC and totally screwing up my University studies.

Re:IRC

[Himring]

they should have given the prize to Jarkko Oikarinen for creating IRC and totally screwing up my University studies.

Or sid miers for civilization. That game put me in the hospital....

Re:IRC

[Gunfighter]

IRC? Well... I went in the military first and got a late start w/ my undergrad work. I started in 1996, right about the time a certain little First Person Shooter called "Quake" was hitting the shelves. IRC definitely didn't help much either, but I must say that Quake stole the show (and the study time, and the class time, and the homework time, etc.).

Re:IRC

[jonr]

Same here. Damn you Sid, damn you to hell!

NeXTcube

[mirko]

The article about his knighthood includes a photo of the computer he used to develop his technique.
It's quite nice to know that like HTML, NeXTstep is still present as OSX.

Re:NeXTcube

[Anonymous Coward]

OSX is inspired by NS technologies, and uses many of the same standards, but there's not one line of shared code between the operating systems.

You really don't know anything about OS X, do you?

Re:NeXTcube

[minus_273]

dude OSX uses an Openstep implematation as its API. have you written any code on OSX? All the objects derive from NSobject and they all have the prefix NS. NS obviously standing for NextStep. Oh yeah and we still use Objective-C. The Next iterfacebuilder that Lee liked so much? Yes it is called interface builder and saves files as .Nib (next step interface builder). If you look at early versions of OSX like Raphsody you see it is nearly identical to Next.
Finally, lots of code written for OSX builds on Gnustep and Openstep. For example GNUmail

So, yes it is correct to say that OSX is the modern version of NextStep just like WinXP is the modern Windows

Re:NeXTcube

[WillAdams]

NeXTstep was not merely an austere aesthetic experience, w/ minimal distractions and a flexible, customizable UI which allowed one to reduce screen clutter to just a single tile (the NeXT logo), and a pixel or two (dragged off main menu and / or the cursor), but synergistic whole the likes of which sadly are not likely to be seen again.

Panther helps the aesthetics somewhat, but NeXT users still miss / are irritated by (well, I know I am):

- monolithic main menu bar w/ wasted blank space between the menus and the (optional) information / settings menus for Airport &c.

- verbose Mac-style shortcut descriptions w/ arcane symbols instead of concise NeXT-style shortcuts (in NeXTstep, Save is indicated by ``s'' and Save as by ``S'', no Command symbol (it's assumed---Control only as a modifier is reserved for personal shortcuts / Unix-use), Shift by case)

- Print, Hide, Services and Quit are no longer top-level menus where they made more sense and were quicker to get at.

- scroll bars on wrong side (this can't be fixed by theming 'cause Carbon apps are responsible for deciding where scroll bars are placed :( having them on the left means a window is more useful when partially dragged off-screen and results in less-frequent need to resize a window

- no Webster.app, Digital Librarian / Shakespeare or Oxford's Book of Quotations --- in NeXTstep this meant one was guaranteed to have Command = _not_ used in an app so it'd be available for looking things up in Websters. Sure you can d/l OmniGroups dict.org client &c., but it's not the same (esp. if you're on dial-up)

- Pantone colour library --- used to be this was licensed w/ the system, now each graphic app which needs it has to pay a license, and one _doesn't_ get them in one's office apps (major negative for adhering to corporate identity programs where such is specced) until such time as Office apps are written in Cocoa or support the nsColor API/object/whatever.

- vertical menu

- pop-up main menu --- this is wonderfully fast / efficient / elegant. For me, ``Punch'' in Altsys Virtuoso is pretty much a gesture, right-click, down a bit, then straight over and release

- repositionable sub-menus --- no need for inscrutable button bars, and one can make a given command easy to get to as needed (when doing lots of envelopes I tear of the poste.app Services menu, put it in the bottom left corner, then an envelope is merely a selection, mouse move to bottom left, click, shift right to the print menu (also aligned on the bottom edge for this) click away. (takes longer to say / type than to do)

William
(who really should save all that and put it on a web page, but this time cribbed from my post to MacSlash ;) --- check my rants at http://groups.google.com in comp.sys.next.advocacy to see if I forgot anything...)

Re:NeXTcube

[Anonymous Coward]

no Webster.app,

That's an advantage in my book. Give me an OED.app and I'd be happy though.

Re:NeXTcube

[WillAdams]

But your OED.app doesn't have COMMAND= reserved to get a definition --- having Webster.app bundled ensured this, and it was then trivial to change which dictionary was used (can you say Jargon.app?)

Moreover, the OED is _so_ comprehensive that it verges on useless for day-to-day usage 'cause one has to wade through countless entries of archaic minutiae (not that I'm against that sort of thing, but sometimes one must be practicable).

William

Re:NeXTcube

[geniusj]

Interestingly enough, I believe that NeXTSTEP actually used 'NX' instead of 'NS' :)

ah shit

[tintub]

that was supposed to be in reply to the al gore comment.

Re:NeXTcube looks like Ninnle!

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks surprisingly like the original release of Ninnle Linux!

We know Linus uses Ninnle on his own desktop...does Sir T B-L?

BT?

[T-Kir]

And don't forget, British Telecom apparently 'invented' hyperlinking way before Sir Tim did... mind BT is a [sarcasm]much loved[/sarcasm] company here in blighty.

I'm in the process of filing an official complaint for them fecking up my broadband connection for three weeks (even though their "complaints" department might actually be a bin), since they're obviously such "innovators" of technology it takes another company to be able to provide my broadband services... anyway, rant over & just my 0.02

Re:BT?

[somethinghollow]

And Vannevar Bush really did invent hyperlinking way before British Telecom with the writing / publication of "As We May Think" circa 1945.

I think Berners-Lee would be the daddy of the web. Bush would be the grand daddy.

Re:BT?

[metlin]

A little OT, but this reminds me of what one of my professors here calls early innovator problems.

He was at AT&T research labs, where the primary means of communication is based on phone culture - they communicate everything using telephones, and use their phone as we use e-mail.

He would say that it got so bad that nobody would check their e-mails for days on end. For people who've been there a long time, its been so well ingrained that they cannot even think of anything else.

And so, you have these bunch of computer scientists (whom you would expect to use e-mail, but do not) who use only telephones for communication who use only the telephone for communication.

And hence, they had the early innovator problem - they were the earliest to come up with solutions for certain problems, and find it hard to adapt to new technology because of inertia.

I think British Telecom is facing the same problem - despite everything, they have serious issues moving into new technology services, no matter how advanced they are or what percentage of market they actually have - they inherently have issues within that makes them look bad.

Just my $0.02 :)

Al Gore spilled coffee

[Anonymous Coward]

"Al Gore did not creat the Internet. He did, however, sleep at a holiday inn express"

During which he spilled hotel coffee on himself, and then proceeded to sue Holiday Inn Inc because the coffee was hot.

Around the same time...

[Eccles]

Around the same time TBL came up with HTTO, I was running an e-mail magazine, and wanted an automated way for people to get back issues. I tried rigging something up via finger, with much the same intent as and similar structure to Tim's HTML stuff.

If I'd known more about hypertext, I could have been the knighted one!

Excuse me, I'm going to go cry now...

Re:Around the same time...

[PennyUK]

You and me too

Snopes ain't God, buddy ...

[cascadingstylesheet]

Your quote is out of context

This is one reason Snopes sometimes bugs me. It is not an "urban legend" that Gore made a sweeping claim, clearly intended to be interpreted as it was, but carefully crafted to be deniable.

Gore's devotees, however, were clearly quite discomfited by his claim ...

This Snopes article is basically an opinion piece, trying to pass as a skeptical debunking piece.

Re:Snopes ain't God, buddy ...

[Himring]

Snopes has/had a list of ridiculous quotes attributed to dan quayle stating "most of these are from dan quayle" (no, I'm not defending the blithering quayle). Most? Well, which ones?

I'm glad I never tried that crap in college paper....

Status: True- Gore said he invented Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

"Claim: Vice-President Al Gore claimed that he "invented" the Internet. Status: False."

If you look at his actual statement on CNN, he did claim to have invented the Internet while in congress. The term "invent" and "create" mean the same thing in the context of Gore's quote: he was taking false credit for having brought something into being.

silly

[minus_273]

i think it is silly to claim that one person is the father of the web. Yet, the BBC loves to claim that it was Lee. With the number of different technologies that comprise the Internet today it is ignorant to say it has an inventor. Why HTML? and not Gopher? why not the creators of TCP/IP? why not routers? How about the first people to set up the network (who the US media claim invented the web).

Re:silly

[blane.bramble]

Because HTML and HTTP defined the World Wide Web. Note: the www is *not* the internet. Gopher is not the WWW. TCP/IP is not the WWW. Routers are not the WWW. The first people to set up the network helped invent the internet. Not the WWW.

Re:silly

[Anonymous Coward]

you dickweed. The bbc are not claiming he invented the internet, just the web.

Re:silly

[sir_cello]

If you want precision:

He's not the father of hypertext, that largely goes to Ted Nelson.

He's not the father of the internet, that largely goes to the early ARPANET pioneers and no one name in particular.

He's not the father of open source software, that largely goes to Richard Stallman and GNU.

He is the father of the Web though, which is built upon the ideas of hypertext, but uses the TCP/IP protocol suite on the internet, and a lot of the software that drives the internet is possible because of open source _and_ open standards, and as much as possible WWW embodies the idea (alongside the IETF) of openness and accessibility.

In each of these cases you can find examples of prior technology (e.g. you mention Gopher, but in fact WAIS was closer to WWW than anything else - and WAIS came out of Thinking Machines Corp. of who some of the people are now with the web archive), and related pioneers (e.g. Linux - rather than Linus - have helped drive acceptance of open source; or Andersaan and Netscape who helped turn the WWW into a practical reality with browser technology). However, the names mentioned are the key figureheads.

Be careful to distinguish the layers:
- the internet (i.e. the transport)
- the web (i.e. the content)
- open source (i.e. the social philosophy)

Re:silly

[Anonymous Coward]

Vince Cerf may be the father of the Internet, but we're the mothers that have to make it work.

--A Sysadmin

Gore right, Snopes wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Even Gore knows that what he said is different from Snopes' contorted spin.

In March 2000, when asked about mistakes that he had made during his campaign, Gore himself said that his worst mistake was "Claiming that I invented the Internet." Exact quote.

Re:Gore right, Snopes wrong

[91degrees]

Yes... It is an exact quote. taken out of context!.

It was a quip. What he meant with his "invention" remark was that he pushed forward various initiatives that allowed business use. It was taken out of context, and he's been suffering ever since. Hence the joke.

Or are you claiming that he actually believed that he meant it the way it's been interpreted?

Gore is an amazing guy

[Anonymous Coward]

From sharpened.net

2003-04-01

On March 19, former Vice President Al Gore joined the Board of Directors at Apple Computer. His history of helping advance technology in the areas of education and science is seen as a valuable asset to Apple. While some have acclaimed Gore for his technology initiatives as Vice President, he has also received scorn from others for claiming he "invented the Internet."

When recently asked about his statement, Gore responded, "I don't know why people don't believe me -- it must be because I was part of the Clinton administration... and I guess that's a pretty valid reason. But it should not discount the fact that I invented the Internet."

Though only in his first days as a member of the Apple board, Gore has already taken credit for the iMac, the iPod, and the original Macintosh computer. "I am so glad that I created all of those wonderful things," he said during a recent interview. "I am as proud of the Macintosh as I am the automobile, which I invented some time in the early 1900s." When asked about his age, the former Vice President declined to comment.

No, I'm New Here

[New Here]

No, I'm New Here

Re:No, I'm New Here

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL

Finnish inferiority complex

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Finn I can't but wonder what the hell is the point in an award like this?

I mean come on. Every two years we ship one million euros of tax-payers money abroad and get what in return? It's just stupid.

I can see only one purpose for it: someone high up in the government/academia has a pretty bad case of inferiority complex and comes up with the idea of the prize to alleviate it. "Let's get more attention to us Finns by giving out money. Oh yeah, a great idea. The Swedes are already doing it with the Nobel prize, so let's start our own knock-off award, complete with all the pomp-and-ceremony."

Re:Finnish inferiority complex

[DA_Chef]

As a fellow Finn, couldn't agree with you more.

This will be a forgotten prize in 2008.

Re:Finnish inferiority complex

[azaris]

I mean come on. Every two years we ship one million euros of tax-payers money abroad and get what in return? It's just stupid.

Who says it's tax-payer money? From their website:

The Finnish Technology Award Foundation is an independent fund established in 2002 by eight Finnish organisations that support technological development and innovation.

Founding Organizations

The Confederation of Finnish Industry and Employers - TT
The Finnish Academies of Technology - FACTE
The Finnish Academy of Technology - TTA
The Finnish Assosiation of Graduated Engineers - TEK
The Foundation of Technology - TES
Foundation of Finnish Inventions
The Swedish Academy of Engineering in Finland - STV
Walter Ahlström Foundation

The usual idea behind foundations is that you have a body that gathers money from donations from corporations are individuals - then uses the interest and profits from investments to fund charitable causes. I don't really see why they would be directly giving away "tax-payer money" as such.

Re:Finnish inferiority complex

[Jussi K. Kojootti]

Yeah, just like the ridiculous 'Nobel' thingy the swedes and Norwegians have!

It's impossible to predict how respected a prize like this will become, but let's keep in mind that this one has by far the largest prize sum (of all technology awards in the world).

Re:Finnish inferiority complex

[Jansku]

Hei, come on guys! As a fellow finn I can say IT'S YOU that have the inferiority complex - not the people who put up the award. So obvious. What the heck does it matter anyway, so to speak, if we have this award? You complain, you have the complex!

Re:I don't give a shit.

[boudie]

Just remember: When you get out of bed, it's feet first.

Re:It sounds like...

[boudie]

Act dumb. Shouldn't be difficult.

We need a new mod category

[gosand]

He did make what the "web" is today, the fact that you're reading this now is down to him, he did something which is far easier to do now (though still not!) in a time when this sort of concept couldn't be comprehended.

I think we need a new mod category: Incomprehensible.

Re:We need a new mod category

[Anonymous Coward]

As Al Gore memorably wrote in his classic "A Tale of Three Ws", "It is a far, far unobscurer thing I write now than I have ever wrun"

Re:We need a new mod category

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we need a new mod category: Incomprehensible.

What are you talking about? Nearly every Slashdot moderation is incomprehensible!

Grammar nazi

[Anonymous Coward]

"you dickweed. The bbc are not claiming he invented the internet, just the web"

That is "The BBC is claiming".

You am using words wrongly.

Re:Grammar nazi

[Asterisk]

Words that correspond to collective singulars, such as companies, can be properly referred to in either the singlar or the plural.

Re:Grammar nazi

[Anonymous Coward]

"Words that correspond to collective singulars, such as companies"

Companies, as you mentioned, are plural. A company, however, is singular.

Nonsense

[Fished]

OSX *is* NextSTEP for all intents and purposes. It is not even a total rewrite of NextSTEP - it is just an evolution of NeXT with new eye-candy and a MacOS 9 compatibility layer bundled. Go read some 'man' pages - half of the weird little commands in OSX (such as 'open') were first created in NeXT.

You don't have to be British...

[blorg]

...to receive a knighthood, only to use the title 'Sir'. Gates is being knighted (this was covered so widely I suspect you may be a troll) along with many other Americans including Rudy Giuliani, Steven Spielberg, Bob Hope, Billy Graham, George Mitchell, Norman Schwarzkopf and George Bush senior. Note the inclusion of politicians and that the 1810 consitutional amendment banning American citizens from accepting foreign honours was never ratified (ref: quoted BBC article above).

Re:You don't have to be British...

[Anonymous Coward]

...to be an idiot.

Just American.

Will it Change Microsoft?

[Walrus99]

The web was created to be cross platform and to be able to use different types of browsers. Microsoft has cosistently created browsers and web editors, as well as the internet technology in Word, etc. to favor its own products and OS's. Maybe Tim B-L getting this award will get them to use standards and technology that anyone on any platform, using any browser can access. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA ...

Re:Will it Change Microsoft?

[MonTemplar]

Maybe Tim B-L getting this award will get them to use standards and technology that anyone on any platform, using any browser can access.

They already are. Any platform, any browser - from Microsoft. :-)

-MT.

Re:Will it Change Microsoft?

[stephenbooth]

Sadly not. I've seen pages that render fine in IE5 but are screwed up in IE6 and visa versa.

Stephen

TBL points out that he didn't invent the internet

[blorg]

...but rather the WWW, right here. It's in his 'Kid's Questions' section - you might want to check it out.

Mod Parent Right

[Anonymous Coward]

This is so true. He said it in 99 during an interview.

Yet... he didn't create it!

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm one of those people who prefers to give Al Gore the benefit of the doubt."

Despite the fact that his claim was flat-out false???

"As a member of congress Gore was one of those who voted FOR the continued funding ...."

blah blah blah. You are using the undeniable fact that Gore was of help long after the Internet was created to somehow shrug off his claim that he was there at the beginning and created it.

It is like saying "Henry Ford created the automobile? I guess it is OK to say that because he perfected the assembly line".

Politicians and the Internet

[AtariAmarok]

George W Bush: "The Internet? What's that?"

Albert W Gore: "I created it"

John F Kerry: "I voted for it, and I voted against it"

Pat Buchanan: "If we stop illegal immigration, the spam and pop-up problem will be taken care of".

TBL did innovate

[Anonymous Coward]

and he deserves the award. But lately, the W3C is becoming more and more irrelevant. Can they drag their butts more and produce aweful specifications that are geared towards research and not practical applications. Take the latest RDF spec for example, it claims to be driven by "model theory", but the description of what model theory is doesn't quite match up with what W3C is calling model theory. I've read the RDF spec atleast 3 times and I can't make heads or tails about what Model theory is suppose to do for semantic web. the current RDF spec doesn't even cover first-order logic, which is related to model theory. Non-monotonic reasoning system are influenced by the research in model theory, but since RDF explicity avoid non-monotonic modes of reasoning, I can't see where and how RDF uses model theory.

Perhaps they came up with their own Model theory that isn't derived or influenced by other more established definitions of model theory. In any case, TBL needs to kick the RDF staff in the butt and produce an useful specification. A BS spec that isn't suitable for real applications is pretty useless to everyone outside of people trying to milk W3C for their own interests and pet projects.

Re:TBL did innovate

[SandHawk]

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make about the relationship between RDF and Model Theory. Does it really matter to what extent RDF is "driven by model theory"?

I think the RDF Semantics specification was written in a manner illuminated by MT, but the basic design and utility of RDF are not particularly related. They come more from frame systems, semantic nets, and the like; it's a small fragment of first-order logic.

If you'd actually like to engage in productive discussion about RDF or the relevance of the W3C, you might try some of the W3C mailing lists.

(Disclosure: I'm part of the "RDF staff", although we didn't write the specs; mostly the staff just offers support for the members of the Working Groups who do the real work. Of course we do accept some responsibility for problems in the spec, so if you'd care to explain better, I'll listen.)

You're an idiot.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot and don't know what you're talking about.

Touche

[grouse]

But while I abhor this typicall British style of referring to a collective noun as a plural, it is generally considered correct. See, e.g. The American Heritage Book of English Usage or any other extensive usage manual.

Quote is in context

[Anonymous Coward]

"It was taken out of context, and he's been suffering ever since. Hence the joke. "

The context was of stuff he did in Congress. His false statement alone, or read as part of the entire interview still means the same thing, and is still incorrect.

"Or are you claiming that he actually believed that he meant it the way it's been interpreted?"

The statement is wrong. He admitted himself it was a mistake. Either he believed it at the time (less likely), or he slipped up and said something he did not intend to (more likely). No "interpretation" is necessary: he is rather clear that he is taking credit for inventing the thing.

Or as GNUStep

[Moderation abuser]

So you can stick it on your Linux/ Solaris/ HP-UX/ AIX/ *BSD system.

For those who write OS X software, you are also writing for GNUStep.

"Sir"?

[Halmos]

Why is this guy a "sir"? For inventing the Web? C'mon. I smell Illuminati.

Arise Sir Tim...

[cardpuncher]

You know, it's a shame that you can't pick a new name when you get knighted (like you can when you're ennobled).

Otherwise, TBL could have been "Sir Linkalot"...

Millenium?

[Ctrl-Z]

I know that spelling and Slashdot do not go together, but it's right there at the top of the page. It's spelt "Millennium", people!

It is more like Zelig

[Anonymous Coward]

"This is exactly like Montgomery claiming to have single-handedly beaten back the Germans during the "battle of the bulge" when he said, "it was one of the toughest fights I've had"

At least Montgomery was INVOLVED SOME HOW at the Battle of the Bulge.

When the Internet was created, however Gore was NOWHERE TO BE SEEN. Nor was he leading the effort ("taking the initiative"). He came on the scene later.

"It's apparent to me, anyhow, that Gore's "invention of the Internet" claim is far more a blatant self-aggrandizement than what Montgomery did.... "

Far more. He claimed to be leading an effort when others did this a few years before Gore got into Congress.

Who are you calling dolo, Dolo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too my knowledge, a Dolo is an offshore submerged breakwater.

invented the web? No way!

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont think so. HyperText idea has been around a long long time before 1991.

Actually I dont think Tim berners lee invented the web. He was just the first that implemented the web idea, an idea that could be easily understood by the majority of computer people.

A lot of other ideas are waiting, to understand them and implement them. And then, better hope not to win a prize after 13 years, because this is a bad sign for the "winner".

the concept had been thought of

[PennyUK]

I was writing something that allowed you to link between different documents stored on a network at approximately the same time as TBL was coming up with the html. Functionally it was the same concept, although the implementation was different.

It used postscript, and other propriatry software.

it might be the first Millenium Technology Prize,

[cliveholloway]

is it the first Millennium Technology Prize?

spell checker - n. An application within most word processing programs that checks for spelling errors in documents.

cLive ;-)

Another happy Apple user

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that a Titanium powerbook I see before thee? What a potential ad for Apple!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3628 321.stm

"Strip" the prize indeed!

[finelinebob]

TBL may have come up with HTML, but pr0n made the web what it is today....

What, no LISP bragging?

[Tablizer]

Nobody complains about S-expressions (LISP) being bypassed in favor of HTML? Something is wrong. This ain't slashdot.

Re:it might be the first Millenium Technology Priz

[crem_d_genes]

As the person submitting - and one who made a typo in an earlier submission - both spellings may be used - as in this partial sentence taken from the American Heritage online - okay it's not *the* definitive guide to grammar - "...peoples migrated into the area during the first millenium, displacing the earlier San inhabitants. European colonization began in 1889". I agree - the form you present is much more accepted :~) Point taken -

Sir TBL inventor of HTML? I think not!

[htacoma]

I have read several posts attributing HTML as an invention of TBL.
This in my opinion is incorrect, the WWW dates back to 1980.
HTML is a derivative of SGML which dates back to 1960's and is
a descendant of IBM's GML.
Check this for some more history.
--
Han Tacoma