Web inventor finally makes money off it
Shorty
Manchester, UK Icrontian
Berners-Lee receives $1.2 million prize in honor of contribution
Tim Berners-Lee shows off his Millennium Technology Prize trophy Tuesday. "There are so many new things to make, limited only by our imagination," he told the Helsinki audience.
The Associated Press
Updated: 10:03 p.m. ET June 15, 2004HELSINKI, Finland - Tim Berners-Lee, who received a $1.2 million cash prize Tuesday for creating the World Wide Web, says he would never have succeeded if he had charged money for his inventions.
"If I had tried to demand fees ... there would be no World Wide Web," Berners-Lee, 49, said at a ceremony for winning the first Millennium Technology Prize. "There would be lots of small webs."
The prize committee agreed, citing the importance of Berners-Lee's decision never to commercialize or patent his contributions to the Internet technologies he had developed, and recognizing his revolutionary contribution to humanity's ability to communicate.
Berners-Lee, who is originally from Britain and was knighted last December, has mostly avoided both the fame and the fortune won by many of his Internet colleagues. Despite his prize, he remained modest about his achievements.
"I was just taking lots of things that already existed and added a little little bit," said Berners-Lee, who now runs the standard-setting World Wide Web Consortium from an office at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"Building the Web, I didn't do it all myself," he said. "The really exciting thing about it is that it was done by lots and lots of people, connected with this tremendous spirit."
Berners-Lee indeed took concepts that were well known to engineers since the 1960s, but it was he who saw the value of marrying them.
Pekka Tarjanne, chairman of the prize committee, said "no one doubts who the father of the World Wide Web is, except Berners-Lee himself."
Finish President Tarja Halonen presented the biennial award, subsidized by the government. The cash prize is among the largest of its kind, and Berners-Lee is the first recipient.
Submitted by: gtghm
Source: MSNBC
Tim Berners-Lee shows off his Millennium Technology Prize trophy Tuesday. "There are so many new things to make, limited only by our imagination," he told the Helsinki audience.
The Associated Press
Updated: 10:03 p.m. ET June 15, 2004HELSINKI, Finland - Tim Berners-Lee, who received a $1.2 million cash prize Tuesday for creating the World Wide Web, says he would never have succeeded if he had charged money for his inventions.
"If I had tried to demand fees ... there would be no World Wide Web," Berners-Lee, 49, said at a ceremony for winning the first Millennium Technology Prize. "There would be lots of small webs."
The prize committee agreed, citing the importance of Berners-Lee's decision never to commercialize or patent his contributions to the Internet technologies he had developed, and recognizing his revolutionary contribution to humanity's ability to communicate.
Berners-Lee, who is originally from Britain and was knighted last December, has mostly avoided both the fame and the fortune won by many of his Internet colleagues. Despite his prize, he remained modest about his achievements.
"I was just taking lots of things that already existed and added a little little bit," said Berners-Lee, who now runs the standard-setting World Wide Web Consortium from an office at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"Building the Web, I didn't do it all myself," he said. "The really exciting thing about it is that it was done by lots and lots of people, connected with this tremendous spirit."
Berners-Lee indeed took concepts that were well known to engineers since the 1960s, but it was he who saw the value of marrying them.
Pekka Tarjanne, chairman of the prize committee, said "no one doubts who the father of the World Wide Web is, except Berners-Lee himself."
Finish President Tarja Halonen presented the biennial award, subsidized by the government. The cash prize is among the largest of its kind, and Berners-Lee is the first recipient.
Submitted by: gtghm
Source: MSNBC
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Comments
Right that a man should receive his due for such unrivalled modesty.