creator of the freakin' internet

Tim Berners-Lee, father of the web, recently spoke at my company. As most geniuses, he is sometimes hard to understand. Especially if this particular genius jumps from topic to topic, and then goes into an incomprehensible rant on RDF.

Anyhoo, one message that I thought was really interesting is this: when trying to implement a standard, make every step a step downhill for somebody. Tim was talking about HTTP, HTML, and a whole bunch of other doohickeys that now make up the web. Hard to believe that not too long ago that stuff wasn’t even there, and no one could agree on interoperable standards. Thinking about that definitely puts the issues that I’m facing at work into perspective (by making them seem like child’s play).

At the end of the talk, somebody asked Tim about what he thought the web will be in the future. Tim answered, “I hope that I don’t know, because the web, like paper, was designed to be constraint-free.” That response sure sounds different from anything an IT executive would say – pretty much every company out there dreams of locking its customers into their standard to reap the profits.

Good thing Bill Gates didn’t invent the web.