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516 lines
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516 lines
28 KiB
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
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"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
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<head>
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<title>Lecture - Japan prize 2002 Commemorative Lecture -
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Berners-Lee</title>
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<style type="text/css">
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blockquote {background-color: #EFFFC1}</style>
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<link rel="stylesheet" href="/StyleSheets/base.css" />
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<!-- Changed by: tbl 19990524-->
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</head>
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<body xml:lang="en" lang="en">
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TimBL
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<h2>Commemorative Lecture</h2>
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<h1>The World Wide Web - Past Present and Future</h1>
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<p>Exploring Universality</p>
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<h3>Abstract</h3>
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<blockquote>
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<p>The most important thing about the World Wide Web is that it is
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universal. By exploring this idea along its many axes we find a framework
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for considering its history, its role today, and guidance for future
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developments.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>Hardware independence, which once meant running on mainframes,
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minicomputers and microcomputers, now extends to a multitude of devices from
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watches and speech devices to big screen televisions. The separation of the
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essential meaning of the information from the form in which it is conveyed
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helps this independence, and also makes the Web accessible to people with
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disabilities. Software independence, which is so important to prevent
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fragmentation into many disconnected proprietary webs, is under as much
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pressure as ever. That the Web must be independent of nation and location is
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nowhere so clear as in an international gathering such as this, where
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character set, language, and culture can be barriers which the technology
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helps us to bridge. As we look forward, we are tempted to distinguish between
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the multimedia world of information targeted for human perception, and the
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well-defined world of data which machines handle. A Web which encompasses
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both these extremes and all the rich land in between is the one which will
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help us best fulfill our hopes for society, for understanding between
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peoples, and finding a balance between the diversity and commonality in this
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rich world.</p>
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<h3>Introduction</h3>
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<blockquote>
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<p>The concept of the Web integrated many disparate information systems, by
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forming an abstract imaginary space in which the differences between them
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did not exist. The Web had to include all information of any sort on any
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system. The only common idea needed to tie it all together was the
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<em>Universal Resource Identifier</em>(URI) identifying a document. From
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that cascaded a series of designs of protocols (such as HTTP) and data
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formats (such as HTML) which allowed computers to exchange information,
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mapping their own local formats into standards which provided global
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interoperability.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>Back in 1989, before the World Wide Web, many different information
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systems existed. They ran on different sorts of computers, each running
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different operating systems, connected by different networks, and using quite
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different programs to give to the user very different ways of accessing
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information. Thus, while the information on two systems might be very
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relevant, the path between them was very long. And yet, in fact, each of the
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computer systems was very likely to be connected to some sort of network. And
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that network was very likely to be connected to another network, so that in
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fact there was a path from bit of data on one computer through a series of
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networks to the other computer. So there was, finally, no fundamental reason
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why these barriers to communication should exist.</p>
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<p>The first breakthrough was the Internet, and I can't emphasize too often
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that I didn't invent the Internet! There were many networks, but they were of
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different types, some small, some large, and they used different sorts of
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connection. A computer could be on more than one network, and it was Vint
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Cerf and his colleagues who realized that a computer connected to more than
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one network could act as a kind of postal sorting office, and be used to
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forward information between the networks. Even though the little networks
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might use different numbering schemes for different computers, they imagined
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that each computer was on some global "Inter-network" and gave each computer
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a number. To describe things simply, the information is passed around in
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little packets (rather, as Vint says, like postcards) and each has on it a
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number that is the address of the computer to which it has to be delivered.
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The forwarding computers just look at the address number on each packet to
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figure out which network to send it over next. In this way, all you have to
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do is send off a packet with the right address number on it, and sooner or
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later it will arrive at the right place. The Internet was invented around the
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1970s. I was fortunate in that in 1989, when I was looking at the problems of
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networked information systems, it was deployed across the US and to a certain
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extent in Europe.</p>
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<p>The way the Web works is very simple. When you see a link in a Web page,
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it might be underlined, or blue, but however the computer indicates there is
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a link, that means that, in a special hidden code inside the document, there
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is the URI of the document to which the link goes. What happens when you
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click? You computer looks at that URI, and if (like most URIs at the moment)
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it starts "http:", then it looks at the next bit, something like
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"www.w3.org". That is the <em>domain name</em> of the publishing authority,
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but what it needs is the number of a computer. Fortunately, a large number of
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<em>domain name servers</em> exist, computers which collaborate to hold a
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list of which domain name correspond to which computer address. Your Web
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browser sends, to one of these domain name servers, a packet containing the
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name of "www.w3.org", and received in return the address, "18.23.7.7". Your
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browser then sends off a packet to that address asking for the URI. The
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server responds by transmitting the new Web page back across the Internet to
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the browser. The browser receives the document, decodes the HTML tags in it,
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and displays a fresh Web page on your screen.</p>
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<p>The Web required everyone to give a URI to their documents: a large
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request. To attain its universality, the design of the Web could not impose
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any extra constraint on how data was represented or organized. In fact, the
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first Web-specific communications protocol (HTTP) and data format (HTML),
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designed at the same time as the URI, were very successful and used for a
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very large amount of the web. However, the Web still was designed to only
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fundamentally rely on one specification: the Universal Resource
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Identifier.</p>
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<h3>Device independence</h3>
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<blockquote>
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<p>That the same information should be accessible from many devices is a
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core rule of the Web. Once the choices were 80 character terminals or the
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new personal computers. Now, the number of pixels on a computer screen has
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steadily increased, but mobile devices have small screens or voice input
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and output. Our ability to represent information independently of the
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hardware we use is more important than ever.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>The direct impact of the Web was seen in its ability to cross hardware and
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software boundaries. Before the web, at CERN, academic papers and
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administrative data were kept on a mainframe computer, but much live
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information and "help" information was available on minicomputers. Most
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people had replaced the terminals in their offices with personal computers,
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but still kept a window open logged onto the mainframe simply to access the
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phone book. Unexciting though it was, access to the phone book from computers
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of all sorts was an early incentive for browser adoption at CERN: for these
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people it was the <em><span style="font-style: normal">critical
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application</span></em><span style="font-style: normal"></span>which
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convinced them.</p>
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<p>A crucial factor in the design of the Web was the use of markup languages
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which transmitted the intent of the markup instead of the actual form for
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display. For example, tags for <em>heading level one</em> rather than
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<em>centered bold big text</em> allowed the same information to be displayed
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on color terminals with only one font, as well as black and white multifont
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windows, or whatever was available. This concept, the <strong>separation of
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form and content</strong>, is very important still for today's Web
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designers.</p>
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<p>Interestingly, the Web spread so fast that it was not apparent to many
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designers how limiting it would be to make assumptions about which device a
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user had. Many sites proclaimed that they were "best viewed using 800x600
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pixel screens". A few years later, as typical screens increased to 1024x768
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pixels but many users were still using old 640x480 screens, the mistake
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became apparent.</p>
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<p>More recently, the need for device independence has taken on new
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dimensions as the long-promised dawn of practical speech recognition software
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becomes a reality. Speech interaction breaks the user interface metaphor
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assumption which graphic user interfaces introduced, the idea that the
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computer and human share a view of a document. Speech interfaces bring us
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back to the conversational style which in fact computers used in the old days
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of the command line program. This change is more than just one of screen
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size. When we try to generalize a user's interaction in a way that may
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include mixtures all these modes, it causes significant rethinking, in which
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the community is currently (2002) engaged.</p>
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<h3>Software Independence</h3>
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<blockquote>
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<p>Many different forms of software provide and consume Web information,
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and no one program was critical to the whole Web. This decentralization of
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software development was and always will be crucial to its unimpeded
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growth. It also prevents the Web itself from coming under the control of a
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given company or government through control of the software. Communication
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standards give people a choice of software, but we must all learn to be
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aware of when our experience is being controlled by software with a
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bias.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>The Web was deployed not as a program, but as a set of protocols.</p>
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<p>The initial diagrams made it clear that those specifications -- URI, HTTP,
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HTML, and others -- would form a sort of "bus" connecting the many different
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sort of user programs ("clients") and many different sorts of information
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provider programs ("servers").</p>
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<p><img alt="Clients communicate with servers using a common connection bus."
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src="../../Talks/04-sweb/Architecture.crop.gif" /></p>
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<p>The initial client for the Web ran on a NeXT computer, at that time the
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most sophisticated platform available. The second client was a simple
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terminal-oriented command-line program for use on systems which didn't have a
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graphic interface at all. Between the two they demonstrated the concept of
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software independence.</p>
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<p>The market situation around Web software has been though many phases, but
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this issue has always been important, and still is today. Now that so much
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money, and human attention - which is quickly turned into money, flows
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through the web-human connection, control of any aspect of the interaction
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with a human can be very lucrative.</p>
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<p>Soon companies tried to find ways to influence and control the user's
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choice of information. Computers came with free software, and software came
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with built-in bias toward certain Web pages, and certain search engines.
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Users thinking they are just "searching the Web" use a specific search engine
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which points them to specific information, views, and products. Not only must
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the technology support a choice of software, but a competitive market must
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exist, and users must be informed and aware of what is going on.</p>
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<h3>Internationalization</h3>
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<blockquote>
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<p>From its beginning in a laboratory run by over a dozen collaborating
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countries, the Web had to be independent of any inherent bias toward one
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given country. XML, being firmly based on Unicode, now allows all kinds of
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characters. Internationalization must take into account much more: the
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direction in which text moves across the page, hyphenation conventions, and
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even cultural assumptions about the way people work and address each other,
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and the forms of organization they make.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p></p>
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<p>In 1994, in response to pressure for a body to coordinate development of
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interoperable standards for the Web became intense. The World Wide Web
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Consortium (W3C) was founded at the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) at
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the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to lead the technical
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evolution of the Web and ensure its interoperability by developing common
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protocols. A lot of effort is spent at the W3C to justify the first two W's
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of "WWW'.</p>
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<p>The first HTML documents were unfortunately (due to my ignorance of
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<em>Unicode</em>) capable of representing only Western European languages.
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Since then, the new version, XHTML is based on XML, which is based on the
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<em>Unicode</em> standard.</p>
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<p>Nowadays, the Consortium's Internationalization Working Group reviews new
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technology to try to spot areas in which a national, linguistic, or cultural
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bias may have crept into the design. We are very pleased to be hosted in
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parallel by INRIA in France and Keio University in Japan, as well as the
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Massachusetts Institute for Technology in the United States of America.</p>
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<p>For all this work, the English language still tends to dominate the
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Internet. From the technical point of view, the Internet had been installed
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across the US when the Web started, but had not spread so much in other
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countries. From the market point of view, the US provides a single-language
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block which is a huge market for a new Web site, in contrast to Europe where
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the need for translation into many languages is a hinderance to the explosive
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uptake of a new site. I certainly hope that the Web will allow many cultures
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and languages to flourish, and that we will not sink to that common subset of
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expression which we can all understand.</p>
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<h3>Multimedia</h3>
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<blockquote>
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<p>Multimedia is not just a buzz-word, it stands for an important dimension
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of variety - the palette of technologies available to human creativity.
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Even the early demos of the web included sounds and music. What has changed
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since then is that the capacity of typical computers to handle graphics and
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sound has increased, and for some, the bandwidth even allows video to be
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sent. Because many things can still be done with plain text, the exotic and
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the mundane will always coexist on the Web.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>The first Web pages were displayed in a variety of fonts and formatting
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options, but images, sounds and movies were separate documents linked from
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the text page. Marc Andreessen's <em>Mosaic</em> browser led the way in
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integrating images, and Pei Wei's <em>Viola</em> browser demonstrated the
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power of scripting. Now, single Web pages can integrate text, photographs,
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line drawings, and mathematical formulae. The image technology has advanced
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with standards in <em>Scalable Vector Graphics</em> which allows a drawing to
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be sent as an abstract collection of graphic objects, and rendered on arrival
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into the appropriate style and resolution for each device, whether a large
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computer or a small phone. This gives much better results than the use of
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pixel graphics such as GIF and the later PNG. With the Synchronized
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Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) there is now a standard for how all
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manner of multmedia things should be combined into a single experience.
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Unfortunately, in streaming audio, standards are less clear.</p>
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<p>It is still the case, as a decade ago, that bandwidth and processor power
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limit what is practical, especially for video. But always, plain text, which
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needs neither of these, is all one needs for poetry and for most electronic
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commerce.</p>
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<h3>Accessibility</h3>
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<blockquote>
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<p>Just as people differ in the language, characters and cultures to which
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they are used, so they differ in terms of their capacities, for example, in
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vision, hearing, motor or cognition. The universality which we expect of
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the Web includes making sure that, as much as we can, we make the Web a
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place which people can use irrespective of disabilities. There are
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guidelines for Web site designers to help with this now, and a site which
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follows them will typically be easier for anyone to use, and easier to
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index and search.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>The separation of form and content, referred to above, is also a key to
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making the Web accessible to those with disabilities. To communicate well, we
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need not only to master each multimedia genre as effectively as we can, but
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we must also allow people a choice of medium, as users get on more easily
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with some than others. Soundtracks have subtitles, images have descriptions,
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mouse movements have keyboard alternatives, and so on.</p>
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<p>It turns out that this work overlaps very much with other areas.
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Accessibility is enhanced when we have separated form and content, and the
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forms of available include different media. It takes a bit of extra work, for
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example in using the text of a to the video in the form of captions for the
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visually impaired, and in making up textual explanations of the contents of
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images but it is important and worth the extra effort.</p>
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<h3>Rhyme and Reason</h3>
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<blockquote>
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<p>There is another axis along which information varies. At one end of the
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axis is the poem, at the other the database table. The poem, or for that
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matter the 15 second TV commercial, is designed to connect to a human brain
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using all its complex series of associations in clever and powerful ways
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which we can never fully analyze. The database is designed to be queried
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and processed by a machine. It has well-defined values of information
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regularly arranged in columns which, hopefully, has well-defined meaning.
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Databases can be joined and split, combined and repurposed. Human beings
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use different sides of the brain for dealing with these types of
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information. Most information on the Web now contains both elements. The
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Web technology must allow information intended for a human to be
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effectively presented, and also allow machine processable data to be
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conveyed. Only then can we start to use computers as tools again.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>When I first was at CERN, the computing division was known as the DD, or
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<em>Data and Documents</em> division. That name was later deemed outmoded,
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and the usual phrases such as <em>Management Information Systems</em>,
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<em>Computing and Networking</em>, and <em>Information Technology</em> were
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used. However, the old name draws a useful distinction. One can think of
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documents as information items, multimedia possibly, for people. Data, on the
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other hand, is for machines; hard, well defined, the stuff of computation.</p>
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<p>The elegance of the WWW browser as a computer application was that it
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almost completely hid its workings from the user. The user never saw the HTML
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and, in the first browser, never saw the URIs. The job of the machine is to
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keep a low profile, to leave the user alone in an abstract space of
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documents. And so it should be, as machines cannot really do much else in the
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realm of documents. They cannot understand them, and therefore cannot work
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with them.</p>
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<p>In the realm of data, things are different. Numbers can be crunched. Rules
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can be applied. Data can be sifted and correlated by machines very
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effectively. This is what the late Michael Dertouzos, Director of the LCS at
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MIT, described as the "heavy lifting" of information work. The analogy is
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with building work, like when machines can shift the earth much better than
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we can, though they add no creativity as to how to do it. The Web at the
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moment lets us down in the area of data, because the data is not in a form
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which machines can use. It isn't well identified in terms of the way it
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should be combined. All a computer can do is to pretend to be a person
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browsing the Web, and then guess what each Web page means!</p>
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<p>The Semantic Web development adds to the Web formats for represneting data
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and its <em>semantics</em> - the meaning for a machine in terms of what rules
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can be applied and how it can be transformed into other data. This will lead
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to much greater clarity in complex communications, when an invoice is sent
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with some accoumpanying simple mathematics which describes its role in
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commerce transaction. It will lead to much greater re-use of data, and much
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easier analysis of what is going on.</p>
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<p></p>
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<h3>Quality</h3>
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<blockquote>
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<p>Many documentation systems used to be designed for particular
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collections of information, and one could assume that the information in
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such a system had achieved a certain quality. However, the Web itself
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cannot enforce any single notion of quality. Such notions are very
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subjective, and change with time. To support this -- to allow users to
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actually use the web even though it contains junk as well as gems -- the
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technology must allow powerful filtering tools which, combining opinions
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and information about information from many sources, are completely under
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the control of the user.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>It is understood that a collection of works, such as a set of technical
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reports or a library, only includes articles reaching a certain standard, and
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some early dial-up information services similarly amassed information
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according to some quality criterion. Some people miss that with the Web --
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hence the need for portals which provde a filtered view. However useful
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people find such portals, though, it is important that the Web itself doesn't
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try to promote a single notion of quality.</p>
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<p>The Web has to be able to carry, uncomplaining, beauty and ugliness,
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honesty and lie. Users who find all of this of course complain, and sometimes
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ask for it all to be organized and filtered. However, not only would one
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central authority for quality be socially a disaster, but also, any one
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single categorization of data would be only one person's view. Human
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knowledge is not a tree, it is a web. How can we give the user the subjective
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perception of higher quality, while maintaining an open Web for people whose
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criteria are different?</p>
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<p>The answer is through filtering. Unlike censorship, which is the forceful
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prevention of one person's communication by another, filtering is the control
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by the reader of what he or she reads. The trick is to allow the user to
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chose another person, or another group's, criteria of selection. This is what
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happens when a user selects from one of a choice of portals. More
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sophisticated systems involve white lists of "desirable" sites, or black
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lists of "undesirable" sites to be selected. This sort of information about
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information is known as metadata. Metadata in general includes all the
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information which catalogers and publishers and librarians keep about
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information. The Semantic Web langauges (such as RDF) allow metadata to be
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exchanged freely between different parties. As the richness of metadata
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grows, so users will be able to combine criteria to hone their searches and
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guide their browsing. And the Web will be left unconstrained by a central
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authority deciding what information is appropriate for everyone.</p>
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<p>There will, always be trash out there, and gems. Remember that you don't
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have to read the junk. And also remember that the unimportant notes of today
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maybe the foundation of revolutionary new ideas tomorrow.</p>
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<h3>Independence of Scale</h3>
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<blockquote>
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<p>The Web is described as a global phenomenon, and it is, but we must
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remember that personal information systems, and family and group
|
|
information systems are part of it too. There should be no information
|
|
boundary which would prevent a link from my personal diary to a public
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|
meeting. We know we need harmony on a global scale for peace, but that
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|
peace will only be stable so long as social groups of all sizes are
|
|
respected. Starting at the individual, a group of one, one can think of
|
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institutions and ad-hoc groups of all sizes. The Web must support all of
|
|
those, allowing privacy of personal information to be negotiated, and
|
|
groups to feel safe in controlling access to their spaces. Only in such a
|
|
balanced environment can we develop a sufficiently complex a many-layered
|
|
fractal structure which will respect the rights of every human being, and
|
|
allow all the billions of us to live in peace.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p></p>
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<p>When people express to me nervousness about the Web, there are two
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|
concerns I hear repeatedly.</p>
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|
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<p>The first is that the Web will become one giant MacDonalds, and
|
|
international only as a mono-language, mono-cultural block. The French feared
|
|
that the transatlantic Internet cable would cause the culture of the Louvre
|
|
to be trampled over by the culture of Disney. People fear that only one
|
|
portal will end up surpassing all the others and become the only lens through
|
|
which all people see the world. It's a serious concern that if we have a
|
|
global network, we will homogenise our culture. It would be horrible if
|
|
language began to contain only those concepts that are sufficiently bland to
|
|
be understandable by absolutely everybody. We would lose a great deal of
|
|
richness. We need diverse pool of ideas for solving the unknown problems
|
|
ahead of us as teh human race.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>The other fear is the opposite. One can chose what Websites one reads. One
|
|
can filter one's email, so that one sees no information except from a small
|
|
group, a clique, or possibly a group of deluded dangerous fanatics. A person
|
|
can operate in a virtual world without reality-checks from friends and
|
|
neighbors. The danger for people who operate without interaction with the
|
|
larger world is that the only common language they have with those different
|
|
from themselves may be violence. Our world at the moment desperately needs
|
|
enough common understanding to bring peace.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>So, it is important as well, that while we have diversity, that there is a
|
|
balance between the small scale culture and the large scale culture - and all
|
|
scales in between. It seems that it is not only society which clearly needs a
|
|
balance: in its way, a lot of nature does as well. Nature is filled with
|
|
fractal patterns. This can be seen for example in ferns or coastlines. One
|
|
might approach a coastline, and as one gets closer above the coast, it has a
|
|
certain interesting structure. Then, closer, to a tenth of the altitude, it
|
|
still has an interesting structure. Closer and closer, until the point where
|
|
the seaweed curling around a few of the pebbles is visible, it still has an
|
|
interesting structure. It has structure in all levels. I have a deep feeling
|
|
that society needs to be like that. It can't be a simple structure which
|
|
operates just at one level. We need a complicated structure, which is fractal
|
|
in some way. That means that our society and the technology which we use to
|
|
support it has to work at each of these levels.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>The development of the World Wide Web is a great example of human endeavor
|
|
in which many people participated, driven by individual excitement and a
|
|
common vision. There was no global management plan to make the World Wide
|
|
Web. It happened because a very diverse group of people, connected by the
|
|
Internet, wanted it to happen. The process was great fun, and still is. From
|
|
the fact that is it worked, I draw great hope for all our futures. May we now
|
|
use every ability we have to communicate to build a society in which mutual
|
|
respect, understanding and peace occur at all scales, between people and
|
|
between nations.</p>
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<p></p>
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<hr />
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<p></p>
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<p>Tim Berners-Lee</p>
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<p>For Japan Prize Commemorative Lecture, 2002.</p>
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<p></p>
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<p>with thanks to Amy van der Heil for helping to put this together.</p>
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<p></p>
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<p></p>
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<p><small>Last change <!-- keep -->
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$Id: Lecture.html,v 1.9 2003/01/22 18:59:17 amy Exp $ <!-- /keep-->
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</small></p>
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<address>
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<a href="/People/Berners-Lee">TimBL</a>
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</address>
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