Today invention and innovation is a mostly a team effort and we
have few Marconis and Bells to make heroes out of. However Tim
Berners-Lee (OBE) is perhaps the "last of the Mohicans"
as regards bringing about something that has genuinely changed
the world - and looks likely to keep on changing it for a good
few years to come.
Even the most begrudging of texts would acknowledge that he is
the father of HTML and the World Wide Web protocol and is,
therefore, the inventor of publicly accessible networking. In
many ways breaking down one of computing's hardest areas
(networking) in to something that even school children can use -
if only through cleverly designed software that he himself played
no part in.
The unassuming English academic, with thinning blonde hair, may
not have created something that others couldn't, but by being in
the right place at the right time he has written his name in
large letters in computer history. This isn't to begrudge his
programming talent, that is beyond question, but to acknowledge
that chance and luck played a role in his good fortune (that has
not lead to fortune of the financial kind.) In the words of the
proverb, he was a healthy seed that fell on fertile ground.
Today we'll look back at the history of his invention and the
thought behind it, while next time we'll look at his opinions and
thoughts on the new "wired" age and his role as
Chairman of the WWW Committee "w3.org." However, for
insight, we must first explore his basic life story and computer
background.
As Berners-Lee writes himself on his web site
(www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee) and in his book (Weaving The Web
published by Harper-Collins) he did not invent network computing
nor the Internet. The history of these mediums are the subject of
another article - if not a whole series. But linking computers by
phone wires has been going on since the late sixties, but this
was basically an academic exercise that required team of
technicians and programmers with the wisdom of Solomon and the
patience of Jobe!
However they set the rules that remain unbroken to this day -
that computers pass information back and forth in
"packets" with headers and file information going
before it - in order to tell the target computer what to expect
and when.
(This is quite separate from data files which may have to be
broken in to two (or more) packets in order to be sent by this
method. All computer networking software does this automatically,
but this explains the pauses and "wait states" that
network computing involves.)
The inventors of Internet Protocol (IP) where Vinf Cerf and Bob
Khan who worked for a good ten years on the project before it was
ready for public (starting in the academic and hardcore
marketplace) consumption.
Vint (who today works for the telecoms company MCI - itself a
leading Internet player) tells his own condensed history like
this: "The design of Internet was done in 1973 and published
in 1974. There ensued about 10 years of hard work, resulting in
the roll out of Internet in 1983. Prior to that, a number of
demonstrations were made of the technology - such as the first
three-network interconnection demonstrated in November 1977
linking SATNET, PRNET and ARPANET in a path leading from Menlo
Park, CA to University College London and back to USC/ISI in
Marina del Rey, CA."
Berners-Lee started life in the pre commercial computer age and
the first thing he needed in order to own one was a soldering
iron. His first (unnamed) computer was a DIY effort based around
an old television and a primitive M6800 processor ("all
bought on the Tottenham Court Road in London") - the year
was 1976 and this was nothing more than an interesting hobby.
Around then home computing (as we would recognise it today) was
nothing more than a theory and for some an impossibility. Just a
couple of years earlier Steve Jobs (of Apple Mac fame) had said
that "I'll go and live in flat - rather than a house - so I
can own one(!)"
Berners-Lee had academic parents that were even involved in the
stone age Ferranti Mark 1 (based on five hole tape!), which is
acknowledged in certain texts as "the first computer to be
sold commercially." He found the maths it involved
"interesting" and developed electronics as a hobby;
later taking physics as his specialist subject in further
education "because it seem to cross science
boundaries."
This is a repeating theme in Berners-Lee's writing: That for
problems to be solved requires knowledge that crosses various
boundaries, subjects and fields. Maths, although the cornerstone
of all computing, is not enough on its own, he argues. Physics
helped him look at how nature regulated its communication
problems and he put some of this thinking in to his software
design.
Leaving college to join the commercial world - against the advice
of some - he joined Plessey in Dorset (in 1978) where he worked
on things such as bar codes and message relay systems. His own
writing on the time suggests that location played a bigger role
in his choice than the workload!
He didn't need to move house for his next job at D.G Nash (also
in Dorset) where he developed software that drove printers and
created limited multitasking operating systems - although nothing
like we know them today.
Perhaps releasing that his skills were in great demand he went
freelance which allowed time to develop private projects and
cherry-pick work. In 1980 he became a Consultant Software
Engineer at CERN (the European Particle Physics Laboratory in
Geneva) a working relationship that continues to this very day -
although the extent of it remains unrecorded.
Here he started to study how computers could be used to store and
retrieve information in more flexible ways. He was far from alone
in this (and many were probably ahead of him), but the
unpublished software project Enquire formed part of what would
later become the World Wide Web.
In 1989 he started to make history when he proposed a
"global hypertext project to be known as the World Wide
Web." This used chunks of the Enquire code and some of its
unexplored theories. This was started in October 1990 and the
first versions where being tested in house within months and
early models were on the Internet, in general, by the Summer of
1991."
(Before this information was passed around by a series of
information technologies such as Gopher (get it?) - where
information was warehoused and sent later.)
When asked to give his thoughts at the time Berners-Lee says
this: "The dream behind the Web is (sic) of a common
information space in which we communicate by sharing information.
Its universality is essential: the fact that a hypertext link can
point to anything, be it personal, local or global, be it draft
or highly polished.
There was a second part of the dream, too, dependent on the Web
being so generally used that it became a realistic mirror (or in
fact the primary embodiment) of the ways in which we work and
play and socialise. That was that once the state of our
interactions was on line, we could then use computers to help us
analyse it, make sense of what we are doing, where we
individually fit in, and how we can better work together."
And so it came to pass..
In 1994, Berners-Lee joined the Laboratory for Computer Science
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - "the
leading research institute in the world" and in 1997 was
awarded the OBE (among his many awards and honours to numerous to
list here.)
In 1999, he became the first holder of the 3Com Founders Chair (a
leading technology body) and he is also Chairman of the World
Wide Web Consortium (www.w3.org) which co-ordinates Web
development worldwide, with teams at MIT (www.web.mit.edu), at
INRIA in France, and at Keio University in Japan.
"The Consortium takes as it's goal (an ambition) to lead the
Web to its full potential, ensuring its stability through rapid
evolution and revolutionary transformations of its usage."
Says the official text today.
Next time we'll find out what he thinks of cybersquatting (buying
up famous names for future), streaming media and the future of
the Internet.
In the first past of this article we look at how London-born Tim
Berners-Lee wrote the code that created the "www"
protocol that is the corner stone of the Internet. We also looked
at his academic background (he had parents that were both
involved in early day computing) and the thinking that made the
system what it is today.
However it is important what we must make clear is that
Berners-Lee did not invent the Internet, as is commonly believe,
nor did he write the first web browser (Mosaic) - nevertheless he
is the man that has made the medium accesbile to a wide variety
of people throughout the world by inventing the central hypertext
(control codes with in ASC11 text) - and deserves healthy
applause for that.
However the medium is slipping away from him and w3.org
(www.w3.org). Today parts of the service are nothing to do with
him. "Electronic mail was around long before hypertext
systems... videoconferencing and streaming audio channels use
different protocols (than mine) to communicate." He says
today.
In one interview he even went as far as saying that the control
of standards could be wrestled away from the control of the
w3.org by "powerful commercial interests that wanted to work
outside of general consensus."
However he sees his invention more as an idea than a physical
product: "The Web is an abstract space of information."
He told one interviewer. "A medium where information is
exchanged."
There is two parts to any Internet argument: The technical and
the psychological (perhaps that should be simply
"human.") Creating a product is one thing, public
exceptence and use is another. The fact that a product exists and
that it is well designed is not in itself the reason for its
success - although it may well go some way to explaining it.
Berner-Lee is a programmer and an accedemic (although a modest
one) and we have to view him as one. Part of the Internets
popularity is due to its power and flexibility, some it due to
the fact that writers and journalists promote it and explain how
to use it.
Free speech is one thing but when I want information on health
issues (to name but one) I want it from someone that is qualified
to write about the subject - Berners-Lee's answer is some form of
"certificate regulated by a third party organisation" -
presumably aproved by w3.org.
Equally the commercial sector has just as much to make the system
work with support, information and easy-to-use software (a fact
that BL does not deny.) Berners-lee is a programmer and knows
that web product takes time that few have the learning and
interest to put together. His ideas for making the Internet more
interactive is "software that links resources and
information by the click of a mouse... Also there is a need for
systems to be created in which information can be presented only
to a select band of people - this is an underdeveloped
area."
W3.org (which Berners-Lee is Chairman) is not a police force, if
you break its laws they don't send around a uniformed police
force. In many ways it's a bunch of accedemics; most of them on
the state pay roll - it is cetainly not a cross section of those
that use the Internet for leasure or gain.
He explains there work with these words: "We do a certain
amount of putting out fires, and a certain amount of growing --
nursing little trees. We've found that different technical areas,
different political and social areas -- each one has to be
treated on its merits, because the timing constraints and
existing situation tend to be different. In the final analysis,
we are guided by our own perceptions of where we're going, and by
feedback from the advisory committee.
We put a lot of conflicts in front of the members. After all, our
members do represent those people who are seriously interested
and involved in the growth of the Web. They are the people best
positioned to help us answer those questions."
The "universality" of the Internet is as much a problem
as a benefit - you can be thrown in jail for drinking a beer at
20 in the USA, in some parts of the world the age of sexual
consent is 13!
Berner-Lee (through w3.org) has had to involve himself in debates
about Internet porn and other dubious content - starting in the
wake of a Newsweek cover story. A clear case of w3 being
railroaded. Pornography has transfered to every public medium and
if w3.org had had their heads screwed on they would have had
their arguments and PR well laid out in advance. They should have
put the reasoned argument that they set technical standards and
not public morality!
Today he seems happy that the web has created a wealth of
information and now information is available to a far wider group
of people. But his argument is that we surf in the wrong way- we
should go to trusted and official sites and work through the
hyperlinks - because they are like "badges of
approval."
But try as you might we have all more access to information that
is plain wrong than ever before - journalists have to be trained
and most go through the editing process, webmasters do not. In
other words standards are lower. Equally accedemics or the plain
knowledgable do not, by right, have the ability to explain their
views clearly.
The Web is an ongoing phenomena and it has been said that parent
organisations are "merely walking behind the train laying
the track!" While BL argues against this, there is a litt;e
bit of the truth in this. Others are setting protcols such as
Real Audio and MP3 that are not being set before the W3.org for
their stamp of approval.
However he sees a seachange in how people view the Internet:
"Security issues have been pushed further down the agenda
because users release that technologies are in place and they
will be improved." The introduction of Java (the programming
language) get's the BL seal of approval as it "increases
flexibility."
There is many debates: The call for new graphic formats such as
.png that allow quality images from shorter files or improvement
in Internet tracking to combat abuse, but as his (and my) words
can be out of date almost as soon as they hit the page: "An
Internet year is presently about three months!" He told one
European interviewer.
He has also stated his opposition to cybersquating (registering
names with an intention of selling them to others later) as the
"waste of a limited resource," without stating a clear
solution.
Despite his positioning BL isn't a propeller-head, but he seems
exited by the prospect of computing becoming more like the
Internet - a computer being an ever larger pond of information
and the boundries between computing and the Internet fading.
However for progress - read complexity.
(This is a false dawn that many technology futurists have been
predicting - the clean slate approach where progress is made
through software being contimually updated. The browser and
operating system being "laid fresh each morning." A
very typical attitude of those that live and sleep computing.)
WW3 is like most committes, overflowing with bright ideas by
bright people, but spends most of it's time talking to itself and
is no stranger to vagary. It's website (www.w3.org) is a mess
that wouldn't engage anybody that wasn't seriously interested in
subject.
The committee needs to talk to government about supporting the
Internet with better backbone support (getting European schools
hooked up to some low cost system would help) and even government
(and hyper-government) subsidy to help the third world join the
technology party.
BL has all the flaws of many over educated people, they see the
technology rather than the people. Every year the Internet
doubles in size and users from all over world join in - some of
them not speaking English as their first langauge. Change for the
sake of change is hardly desirable..
Nevertheless BL sees virtue in speed, progress and breakthrough:
If an Internet year is only three months will this not take a
physical toll on those in the industry? Asked one interviewer:
"The plus point is that we will be able to live three or
four hundred Web years, which will be very exciting..." Said
Berners-Lee in response.
Peter Hayes (c) 2000