Slashdot Mirror
Hypertext Creator: Structure of the Web 'Completely Wrong'
angry tapir writes "The creator of hypertext has criticized the design of the World Wide Web, saying that Tim Berners-Lee's creation is 'completely wrong,' and that Windows, Macintosh and Linux have 'exactly the same' approach to computing. Ted Nelson, founder of first hypertext project, Project Xanadu, went on to say, 'It is a strange, distorted, peculiar and difficult limited system... the browser is built around invisible links — you can see something to click on but you’ve got nowhere else to go.'"
This has always been his design from the very beginning, so of course I'm sure he's upset that so much of the web is free, both free as in speech and free as in beer. The founding fathers of the USA had good intentions, but I imagine that many of them would be shocked to see that we allow women, minorities, and non-landowners to vote in our elections. Just because the guy was first to come up with the idea does not mean that the idea cannot be improved upon. And if the end result is better than the founder's initial vision we have no obligation to turn back progress for sentimental reasons. Edison invented the phonograph but was not successful at running his record company. IBM pioneered the PC but they are no longer in that game. Time for Nelson to sit back down in his page of history and let progress move on without him.