[Infowarrior] - Happy 15th Birthday, WWW!

[Richard Forno]

Tim Berners-Lee introduces the WWW to the Internet Community via the usenet
post from back in 1991.

Wonder how many URLs would fit on the birthday cake?  :)

-rf

(Source URL: 
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.hypertext/browse_thread/thread/7824e490ea
164c06/8b8cee98522d8ecb?lnk=gst&q=worldwideweb+summary&rnum=2#8b8cee98522d8e
cb)

From:         Tim Berners-Lee
Date:        Tues, Aug 6 1991 12:00 pm
Email:         timbl at info .cern.ch (Tim Berners-Lee)
Groups:         alt.hypertext

In article <6... at cernvax.cern.ch> I promised to post a short summary  of the
WorldWideWeb project.  Mail me with any queries.

WorldWideWeb - Executive Summary

The WWW project merges the techniques of information retrieval and hypertext
to  make an easy but powerful global information system.

The project started with the philosophy that much academic information
should  be freely available to anyone. It aims to allow information sharing
within  internationally dispersed teams, and the dissemination of
information by  support groups.

Reader view

The WWW world consists of documents, and links.  Indexes are special
documents  which, rather than being read, may be searched. The result of
such a search is  another ("virtual") document containing links to the
documents found.  A simple  protocol ("HTTP") is used to allow a browser
program to request a keyword  search by a remote information server.

The web contains documents in many formats. Those documents which are
hypertext,  (real or virtual) contain links to other documents, or places
within documents. All documents, whether real, virtual or indexes, look
similar  to the reader and are contained within the same addressing scheme.

To follow a link,  a reader clicks with a mouse (or types in a number if he
or  she has no mouse). To search and index, a reader gives keywords (or
other  search criteria). These are the only operations  necessary to access
the entire  world of data.

Information provider view

The WWW browsers can access many existing data systems via existing
protocols  (FTP, NNTP) or via HTTP and a gateway. In this way, the critical
mass of data  is quickly exceeded, and the increasing use of the system by
readers and  information suppliers encourage each other.

Making a web is as simple as writing a few SGML files which point to your
existing data. Making it public involves running the FTP or HTTP daemon, and
making at least one link into your web from another. In fact,  any file
available by anonymous FTP can be immediately linked into a web. The very
small  start-up effort is designed to allow small contributions.  At the
other end of  the scale, large information providers may provide an HTTP
server with full  text or keyword indexing.

The WWW model gets over the frustrating incompatibilities of data format
between suppliers and reader by allowing negotiation of format between a
smart  browser and a smart server. This should provide a basis for extension
into  multimedia, and allow those who share application standards to make
full use of  them across the web.

This summary does not describe the many exciting possibilities opened up by
the  WWW project, such as efficient document caching. the reduction of
redundant  out-of-date copies, and the use of knowledge daemons.  There is
more  information in the online project documentation, including some
background on  hypertext and many technical notes.

Try it

A prototype (very alpha test) simple line mode browser is currently
available  in source form from node  info.cern.ch [currently 128.141.201.74]
as

/pub/WWW/WWWLineMode_0.9.tar.Z.

Also available is a hypertext editor for the NeXT using the NeXTStep
graphical  user interface, and a skeleton server daemon.

Documentation is readable using www (Plain text of the instalation
instructions  is included in the tar file!). Document

http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

is as good a place to start as any. Note these coordinates may change with
later releases.

_________________________________________________________________

Tim Berners-Lee                 Tel:    +41(22)767 3755 WorldWideWeb project
Fax:    +41(22)767 7155 C.E.R.N.                        email:
t... at cernvax.cern.ch 1211 Geneva 23 Switzerland