Remember using the Internet before the advent of the World Wide Web? If you do, you might appreciate this story from the Independent: Tim Berners-Lee, who developed the protocols for the World Wide Web, is named in the New Year’s Honours List for “services to the internet” and is to be knighted.
There’s no immediate financial benefit to a knighthood, as far as I know, nor is there any career path per se as a knight (Sir Tim lives and works in the USA anyway). But Berners-Lee is a British subject and the selection is still regarded by most as an honor, so I’m glad to see it happen.
From the Independent:
The system, which he developed in his spare time in 1991 while working as a researcher at the European particle research laboratory Cern, features billions of web pages used by hundreds of millions of people every day.
Crucially, Mr Berners-Lee gave his invention away rather than trying to patent or restrict its use, making it possible for the web to grow at a rate never seen. Without his creation, there would be no “www” computer addresses, and the internet might still be the exclusive domain of a handful of computer experts.
I’m not praising Berners-Lee, by the way, for giving away his invention. I’m praising him for having been creative enough to invent it in the first place (and in his “spare time”?). If, like me, you’ve used and enjoyed amazon.com, Yahoo!Groups, expedia.com, or blogging, you have Tim Berners-Lee to thank. He made the Internet easy to use.
Thanks, Sir Tim. Pleased to have you on this side of the pond.