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Tim Berners-Lee awarded the British Order of Merit

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the accolades-and-acolytes dept.

MarsBar writes "The BBC is reporting that Sir Tim Berners-Lee has been awarded The Order of Merit, a royal award granted directly by the Queen. Previous recipients have included Florence Nightingale, Sir Winston Churchill, Bertrand Russell, Graham Greene, Sir Edward Elgar, Mother Teresa and Margaret Thatcher."

2 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. We all should know by now by the_kanzure · · Score: 5, Informative

    Internet != WWW.

  2. Re:Good for him... by SenseiLeNoir · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well the key is, Sir Tim did a LOT to make it accessible. Sure some of the ground work was already done, namely: TCP/IP, SGML, MIME, etc.

    What Sir Tim and his team did is:
    - Created HTML, which was arguably much simpler than SGML (yes it also allowed some mediocre "designers" to also design pages, but ultimately it lead to greater adoption)
    - Created the HTTP protocol, which by far and large was the greatest "enabler" of the technology, ie allow anonymous access to the information held in a ordered and secure manner.
    - Still actively in charge of W3C, and creating new standards, largely without breaking old ones.
    - Helped begat XML.
    - Did not try and patent it.

    So his contributions are large, and he is still actively participating. More importantly, he didnt try to patent it, but freed it.

    --
    Have a nice day!