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0 pointskeyist15y ago0 comments

Switching back to my regular voice, because there are points to make that I can't shoehorn into the fisking format.

"Berners-Lee and W3C get way too much credit for the web". Putting 'Web Founder' in airquotes. This blatant disrespect is what angered me the most and influenced my decision to fisk instead of a polite rebuttal.

Tim Berners-Lee:

- was the first to execute on the idea of combining hypertext with TCP/IP and DNS

- wrote the first browser and HTTP server

- gave it away instead of encumbering it with patents or royalties

- has the humility to downplay his accomplishment and share the credit where it is due: http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/Kids (under "Did you invent the Internet?")

- continues to work on the web to make sure it remains open and transparent instead of resting on his laurels assured of his place in history. The Scientific American essay is but the most recent example

I'm not sure what more he would need to do to be considered the founder of the web.

0 comments

blasdel15y ago

Of course, he did a lot of amazingly awesome stuff as a hacker in the early 90s — but he started turning out turd after turd as soon as his W3C took control over web standards from the IETF and he became a bureaucrat.

He produced a masterwork, but I can't think of a second one — from my POV all the awesome post-IETF web developments happened despite the W3C's best efforts to derail them.

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