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HyperText is a way to link and access
information of various kinds as a web of nodes in
which the user can browse at will.
It provides a single user-interface to large classes of information (reports,
notes, data-bases, computer documentation and on-line help).
We propose a simple scheme incorporating servers already available at CERN...
A program which provides access to the hypertext world we call a browser...
It would be inappropriate for us (rather than those responsible) to suggest specific
areas, but experiment online help, accelerator online help, assistance for
computer center operators, and the dissemination of information by central services such
as the user office and CN [Computing & Networks] and ECP [Electronics &
Computing for Physics] divisions are obvious candidates.
WorldWideWeb (or W3 ) intends to cater for these services across the HEP [ High
Energy Physics ] community.
Tim Berners-Lee , R.
Cailliau . 12 November 1990, CERN
12 November, 1990 WorldWideW eb:
Proposal for a HyperText
Project
To: P.G. Innocenti/ECP, G. Kellner/ECP, D.O.
Williams/CN
Cc: R. Brun/CN, K. Gieselmann/ECP, R.€ Jones/ECP,
T.€ Osborne/CN, P. Palazzi/ECP, N.€ Pellow/CN, B.€ Pollermann/CN,
E.M.€ Rimmer/ECP
From: T. Berners-Lee/CN, R. Cailliau/ECP
... document describes in more detail a Hypertext project.
... The project has two phases: firstly we make use of existing software and hardware as
well as implementing simple browsers for the user's workstations, based on an analysis of
the requirements for information access needs by experiments. Secondly, we extend the
application area by also allowing the users to add new material.
Phase one should take 3 months with the full manpower complement, phase two a further 3
months, but this phase is more open-ended, and a review of needs and wishes will be
incorporated into it.
The manpower required is 4 software engineers and a programmer, (one of which could be a
Fellow). Each person works on a specific part (eg. specific platform support) ...
Tim Berners-Lee , R. Cailliau
W W Why are they green?
"Because I see all "W"s as green..."
 Robert Cailliau: Recently I
discovered that I'm a synaesthetic. Well, I've known it for a long time, but I did
not realise that there was a name for it. I'm one of those people who combine two senses:
for me, letters have colours. Only about one in 25'000 have this condition,
which is perfectly harmless and actually quite useful. Whenever I think of words,
they have colour patterns. For example, the word "CERN" is yellow,
green, red and brown, my internal telephone number, "5005" is black, white,
white, black. The effect sometimes works like a spelling checker: I know I've got
the right or the wrong number because the colour pattern is what I remember or
not...
And now wait for it folks: you have all seen the World-Wide Web logo ofthree superimposed
"W"s. Why are they green? Because I
see all "W"s as green... It would look
horrible to me if they were any other colour.
So, it's not because it is a "green" technology, although I also like that...
So, here I am: twenty years of work at CERN: control engineering,
user-interfaces, text processing, administrative computing support,
hypertexts and finally the Web.
Copyright CERN
| According to R. Cailliau the chain of historical scale events was going by the following way: |
1990
CERN: A Joint proposal for a hypertext system is presented to the management.
Mike Sendall buys a NeXT cube for evaluation, and gives it to Tim. Tim's prototype
implementation on NeXTStep is made in the space of a few months, thanks to the
qualities of the NeXTStep
software development system. This prototype offers WYSIWYG browsing/authoring! Current
Web browsers used in "surfing the Internet" are mere passive windows, depriving
the user of the possibility to contribute.
During some sessions in the CERN cafeteria, Tim and I try to find a catching
name for the system. I was determined that the name should not yet again be taken
from Greek mythology. Tim proposes "World-Wide Web". I like
this very much, except that it is difficult to pronounce in French...
1991
The prototype is very impressive, but the NeXTStep system is not widely spread. A
simplified, stripped-down version (with no editing facilities) that can be easily adapted
to any computer is constructed: the Portable "Line-Mode Browser".
SLAC, the Stanford
Linear Accelerator Center in California, becomes the first Web server in USA.
It serves the contents of an existing, large data base
of abstracts of physics papers.
Distribution of software over the Internet starts.
The Hypertext'91 conference (San Antonio) allows us a "poster" presentation
(but does not see any use of discussing large, networked hypertext systems...).
1992
The portable browser is released by CERN as freeware.
Many HEP laboratories now join with servers: DESY (Hamburg), NIKHEF (Amsterdam), FNAL
(Chicago).
Interest in the Internet population picks up.
The Gopher system from the University of Minnesota, also networked, simpler to install,
but with no hypertext links, spreads rapidly.
We need to make a Web browser for the X system, but have no in-house expertise.
However, Viola (O'Reilly Assoc., California) and Midas (SLAC) are wysiwyg implementations
that create great interest.
The world has 50 Web
servers!
Some of the other
viewpoints on the first 5 years of the WWW
... as Tim Berners-Lee and other Web developers enriched
the standard for structuring data, programmers around the world began to enrich the
browsers.
One of these programmers was Marc Andreessen, who was working for the NCSA
in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois.
In January 1993, Andreessen released a version of his new, handsome,
point-and-click graphical browser for the Web, designed to run on Unix machines.
In August, Andreessen and his co-workers at the center released free versions for Macintosh
and Windows.
In December, a long story about the Web and Mosaic appeared in The New
York Times...
In the Web's first generation, Tim Berners-Lee launched
the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and
HTML standards with prototype Unix-based servers and browsers.
A few people noticed that the
Web might be better than Gopher.
In the second generation, Marc Andreessen and Eric
Bina developed NCSA Mosaic at the University of Illinois.
Several million then suddenly noticed that the
Web might be better than sex.
In the third generation, Andreessen and Bina left
NCSA to found Netscape...
Ether Microsoft and Netscape
open some new fronts in escalating Web
Wars, By Bob Metcalfe, InfoWorld,
August 21, 1995, Vol. 17, Issue 34.
According to Gary
Wolf, "Andreessen
also left the NCSA, departing in December 1993 with the
intention of abandoning Mosaic development altogether. He moved to California and took a
position with a small software company. But within a few months he had quit his new job
and formed a partnership with SGI founder Jim Clark.
"At the NCSA," Andreessen explains, "the deputy director suggested that we
should start a company, but we didn't know how. We had no clue. How do you start something
like that? How do you raise the money? Well, I came out here and met Jim, and all of a
sudden the answers starting falling into place."
In March, Andreessen and Clark flew back to Illinois, rented a suite at the University
Inn, and invited about half a dozen of the NCSA's main Mosaic developers over for a chat.
Clark spent some time with each of them alone. By May, virtually the entire ex-NCSA
development group was working for Mosaic Communications (it was an original name of the Netscape
Communications -G.R.G.).
Andreessen answers accusations that corporate Mosaic Communications "raided"
nonprofit NCSA by pointing out that with the explosion of commercial interest in Mosaic,
the developers were bound to be getting other offers to jump ship. "We originally
were going to fly them out to California individually over a period of several
weeks," Andreessen explains, "but Jim and I said, Waita second, it does not make
much sense to leave them available to be picked up by other companies. So we flew out to
Illinois at the spur of the moment."
Since Mosaic Communications now has possession of the core team of Mosaic developers from
NCSA, the company sees no reason to pay any licensing fees for NCSA Mosaic. Andreessen and
his team intend to rewrite the code, alter the name, and produce a browser that looks
similar and works better.
The Anti-Gates
Clark and Andreessen have different goals. For Jim Clark, whose old company led the
revolution in high-end digital graphics, Mosaic Communications represents an opportunity
to transform a large sector of the computer industry a second time. For Andreessen, Mosaic
Communications offers a chance to keep him free from the grip of a company he sees as one
of the forces of darkness - Microsoft.
"If the company does well, I do pretty well," says Andreessen. "If
the company doesn't do well" - his voice takes on a note of mock despair - "I work at Microsoft."
The chair of Microsoft is anathema to many
young software developers, but to Andreessen he is a particularly appropriate nemesis...
As I ( Gary Wolf) reviewed my
notes from interviews with Andreessen, I was struck by the thought that he may have
conjured the Bill Gates nemesis out of the subtle miasma of his own ambivalence. After all
it is he, not the programmers in Redmond, Washington, who is writing a proprietary Web
browser. It is he, not Bill Gates, who is at the center of the new, ambitious industry. It
is he who is being forced by the traditional logic of the software industry to operate
with a caution that verges on secrecy, a caution that is distinctly at odds with the open
environment of the Web."
The (Second Phase of the) Revolution Has Begun,
By Gary Wolf, Wired 2.10
There are two ages of the Internet - before Mosaic, and after.
The combination of Tim Berners-Lee's Web protocols, which provided connectivity,
and Marc Andreesen's browser, which provided a
great interface, proved explosive. In twenty-four
months, the Web has gone from being unknown to absolutely ubiquitous.
Bill Gates : "...an
Internet browser is a trivial piece of software.
There are at least 30 companies that have written very credible Internet
browsers, so that's nothing... "
"The most important
thing for the Web is stay ahead of Microsoft."
Steve Jobs. Wired, February 1996, p.162
Microsoft may still be No. 2 in the Internet race, but it's rapidly
closing the gap. What's more, Microsoft has forgotten more about PR
and marketing than Netscape ever learned.
The contrast between the two companies was highlighted the day after Clark
induced mass sedation when Microsoft's group vice president, Paul Maritz,
wowed the crowd with the kind of polished, four-star presentation that the Redmondians
seem to be able to do with their eyes closed.
Just like his boss, Maritz promised a lot of stuff that's still not here. But he generated excitement
and energy and buzz. The upshot was to create the kind of halo effect
that will pay dividends when it comes time for developers and corporate shoppers to
make their buying and investment decisions. ....
Is Microsoft Evil?
Slate
Magazine, June 26, 1996 © 1996
Microsoft
Mark Andreessen:
I dont think it's a matter of good and evil --
Microsoft is a a competitor, and a smart one. Jim(Clark)
and I both think it's important to point out what Microsoft is doing in
various areas, since they are very good at using FUD [fear, uncertainty, doubt] to attempt to paralize
the market. Why Bill
Gates wants to be the next Marc
Andreessen, Wired, 3.12, p.236.
"God
is on the side of the big battalions."
said Napoleon. Very few times in warfare
have smaller forces overtaken bigger forces...
by Netscape's Jim Barksdale,
Wired 3.02
iNapoleon's
Timeline:
December, 1995: i-Pearl Harbor
"Pearl Harbor Day." Time Magazine reported it when Bill Gates
declared war on December
7, 1995... Jeff Sutherland
February, 1996: 2-year Prediction
Steve Jobs: We have a two-year window.
If the Web doesn't reach ubiquity in the next two years, Microsoft
will own it.
And that will be the end of it. Wire, February 1996,
p.162
June, 1996: How many ...?
Question : Netscape
has certainly come on awfully strong.
Bill Gates: How
many software developers do you think they have?
The world according
to Gates By Don Tennant, InfoWorld Electric, Jan 4, 1996.
October, 1996: How much?
|
X-Sender: bney@mail2.quiknet.com
To: view@netvalley.com
From: Bob Ney
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996
18:24:41 -0700
. . . . .
As an ISP, I want to give my customers a
software package for their use. I contacted Netscape.
- They said they would let be customize and repackage their product, if I committed to buy
2500 the first year at $17 each.
I said OK, I can do that.
- Then they said, great please send your check for 50% of the moneys due.
That's $21,250. As a small ISP I dont have that available without dipping into my
reserves.
I am then contacted by Microsoft and was told they would send me this really nice
customization kit, which will build a release for Win95, Win NT, Win3.1 and install
Explorer 3, Netmeeting, a commercial TCP dialer and stack. And it has a automated user
sign up server built into it.
It will build a CD Rom image, if I want to distribute that way.
It configures with a wizard in about 5 minutes.
It's seamless and a really good piece of software and installer.
I said that it sounded great, how much?
- No charge. Distribute it all you want to your customers.
Have fun.
Microsoft is such a monster company that they can drop multi millions into
development of a product package that they will give away.
Netscape on the other hand actually wants to make a bit of money on their product.
Thinking of myself first, I took the Microsoft software.
So will most other ISP's...
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. August, 2001: How long?
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To be, or not to be: that is
the question.
William ShakespeareThe market war between two leading browsers is
over. Like it or not, but now Internet Explorer is the fully dominant one. Only
about 2 - 3 percentage of the Web surfing people for some reasons (mostly for the reasons
resembling religious ones) still use Netscape browser. But as long as the Netscape
browser still exist, almost all front-end Web developers around the world are forced to
spend at least 20 - 30 percentage of their paid time to provide both of these two browsers
with compatible layout & DHTML solutions. Just try to imagine what the total price of
all this essentially worthless work on the world wide scale is.
According to some estimation the general effect of existence of almost 'zero market share'
Netscape browser for the worldwide Net-economy far exceeds now (August, 2001) the total
amount of the comparable losses from all known hackers attacks and computer viruses all
together.
They Shoot Horses,
Don't They?
Horace McCoy |
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