wired - 2014 - tim berners-lee on the web at 25 the past , present and future

8/9/2019 Wired - 2014 - Tim Berners-Lee on the Web at 25 the Past , Present and Future

1/5

issues for 9 + FREE iPad & iPhone editionsSubscribe

Tim Berners-Lee on the Web at 25: thepast, present and futureT E C H N O L O G Y ( / T E C H N O L O G Y ) / 0 6 F E B R U A R Y 14 /

by T IM B E RNE RS- LE E (/SE ARC H /AU TH OR/TIM+ B E RN E RS- LE E )

Tweet

266

67

8265

Recommend

This article was taken from the March 2014 issue of Wired

magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print beforethey're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional

content bysubscribing online

(https://www.circules.com/subscribe/wired-uk/60606).

In 1989 I delivered a proposal to CERN for the system that went

on to become the world wide web. This year, we celebrate the

web's 25th birthday.

Like the average 25-year-old, the web has been shaped by a

vast array of influences -- in fact, it was built through the effortsof millions. So this anniversary is for everyone. We should look

proudly on what we've built. And as with most

twentysomethings, the web's full potential is just starting to

show. A radically open, egalitarian and decentralised platform,

it is changing the world, and we are still only scratching the

surface of what it can do. Anyone with an interest in the web's

future -- and that's everyone, everywhere -- has a role in

ensuring it achieves all it can.

Looking back for a moment, what is the web we celebrate this

year? It is not the wires connecting our computers, tablets and

televisions. Rather, it is the largest repository for information

and knowledge the world has yet seen, and our most powerful

communications tool. The web is now a public resource on

Tim Berners-Lee Nadav Kander

(/)
http://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/25jbef/tim_bernerslee_on_the_web_at_25_the_past_present/http://www.wired.co.uk/subscriptions/2014/website/fixed-cover-slothttp://www.wired.co.uk/subscriptions/2014/website/fixed-cover-slothttp://www.wired.co.uk/subscriptions/2014/website/fixed-cover-slothttp://www.wired.co.uk/subscriptions/2014/website/fixed-cover-slothttp://www.wired.co.uk/subscriptions/2014/website/fixed-cover-slothttp://www.wired.co.uk/subscriptions/2014/website/fixed-cover-slothttp://www.wired.co.uk/http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/03/web-at-25/tim-berners-lee/viewgallery/332458https://www.circules.com/subscribe/wired-uk/60606http://www.wired.co.uk/search/author/Tim+Berners-Leehttp://www.wired.co.uk/technologyhttp://www.wired.co.uk/subscriptions/2014/website/fixed-cover-slothttp://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/25jbef/tim_bernerslee_on_the_web_at_25_the_past_present/http://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/25jbef/tim_bernerslee_on_the_web_at_25_the_past_present/http://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/25jbef/tim_bernerslee_on_the_web_at_25_the_past_present/http://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/25jbef/tim_bernerslee_on_the_web_at_25_the_past_present/http://twitter.com/search?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired.co.uk%2Fmagazine%2Farchive%2F2014%2F03%2Fweb-at-25%2Ftim-berners-leehttps://twitter.com/intent/tweet?original_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired.co.uk%2Fmagazine%2Farchive%2F2014%2F03%2Fweb-at-25%2Ftim-berners-lee&text=Tim%20Berners-Lee%20on%20the%20Web%20at%2025%3A%20the%20past%2C%20present%20and%20future%20(Wired%20UK)&tw_p=tweetbutton&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired.co.uk%2Fmagazine%2Farchive%2F2014%2F03%2Fweb-at-25%2Ftim-berners-lee


2/5

which people, businesses, communities and governments

depend. It is vital to democracy and now more critical to free

expression than any other medium. It stores and allows us to

share our ideas, music, images and cultures. It is an incredibly

intimate reflection of our interests, priorities, disagreements and

values. That makes the web worth protecting.

At the heart of the web is the link, represented by banal strings

of characters, notably those that start with http://. When welink information in the web, we enable ourselves to discover

facts, create ideas, buy and sell things, and forge new

relationships at a speed and scale that was unimaginable in the

analogue era. These connections transform presidential

elections, overturn authoritarian regimes, power huge

businesses and enrich our social networks.

Through this concept of linking, the web has grown up

significantly in 25 years, from a collection of interlinked static

documents to a much richer environment of data, media anduser interaction. Millions of developers are using this open web

platform to create distributed applications that can run on

desktops, phones, tablets, televisions, automobiles, digital

billboards, watches everywhere.

Very soon, millions more sensors, appliances and other devices

large and small will take the web to new places. The potential

excites me and concerns me at the same time -- that makes the

web worth our ongoing stewardship. We must build and defend

it now so that those who come to it later will be able to create

things that we cannot ourselves imagine.

I believe that the future of the web is under threat from some

governments that may abuse their powers, some businesses that

may try to undermine the open market, and from criminal

activity. In recent years we have seen a steady increase in

censorship of the web by governments around the world. We've

seen a proliferation of corporate walled gardens, excessively

punitive laws pertaining to copyright and computer misuse, andattempts to undermine or disregard net neutrality. But mass

surveillance, and particularly the reported attempts by

intelligence agencies in the US and UK to break commercial

encryption systems to make it easier to spy on people, is the

most worrying of all, because it could engender a loss of trust

and lead to Balkanisation of the web. We risk losing all that we

have gained from the web so far and all the great advances still

to come. The future of the web depends on ordinary people

taking responsibility for this extraordinary resource and

challenging those who seek to manipulate the web against the

public good.
http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/03/web-at-25/tim-berners-lee/viewgallery/332457


3/5

The good news is that the web has openness and flexibility

woven into its fabric. The protocols and programming

languages under the hood -- including URLs, HTTP, HTML,

JavaScript and many others -- have nearly all been designed for

evolution, so we can upgrade them as new needs, new devices

and new business models expose current limitations.

I have several goals for the web of the next quarter century.

Through them, I believe we can continue to advance our societyand reduce some of the threats posed to and by a system

capable of such reach and power."

MORE 'WEB AT 25 '

10 more experts comment in our Web at 25 series

(http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/03/features/web-

at-25)...

Re-decentralisation

By design the web has no centre. Anybody can create a new

website. When one site fails, the rest of the web continues

unabated. Individual links are allowed to break so the entire

web does not. This architecture enabled the web to scale and

produced the long-tail distribution of sites so conducive to

innovation and an open market. However, some popular and

successful services (search, social networking, email) have

achieved near-monopoly status. Although industry leaders often

spur positive change, we must remain wary of concentrations of

power as they can make the web brittle.

By continually "re-decentralising" the web, we will unleash the

next generation of technology, business and social innovators.

In particular, I look forward to new approaches to video,

photos, music and game distribution. We have seen some

progress (such as DRM-free music) but there are still hard

technical, business and legal problems to solve. Some solutions

may disrupt people's lives and livelihoods, an important reason

to pursue social inclusion via the web.

Openness

In software, "open" refers to free or open-source software,

standards, data, platforms, access and scope. These push

control to the edge, where innovation thrives. Open platforms

let users choose which software to install. The open-data

movement seeks to boost governments' economic efficiency,

knowledge and public trust by liberating people's data. Like

decentralisation, openness empowers people, contributing to

the innovation that produces economic and social gains.

The web runs on open standards: globally accepted agreements

that allow software to talk to each other. When they succeed,

they dramatically lower the cost of creating something. That is

why the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and its OpenStand
http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/03/features/web-at-25


4/5

partners IEEE, IETF, ISOC, the IAB and others defend open

standardisation. Open standards are formed by consensus and

form a fertile base: an idea, a search and some open-source

software, and that idea is live.

Inclusion

The power of the web flows from its universality, but it is far

from available to all. Research suggests that more than 60 per

cent of the world's population do not use the web at all. Oftenthis is due to the costs of mobile and fixed-line internet access.

To tackle this, the World Wide Web Foundation and partners

have launched the Alliance for Affordable Internet to ensure fair

and competitive markets in broadband.

Tim Berners-Lee at his desk in CERN, 1994 CERN

People with disabilities must be able to use the web, and can do

so when standards bodies, developers and content authors all

do their part. An accessible web is a better web for smartphones

and other devices, showing how we all benefit from theinclusive mindset. There are similar benefits to a web platform

that supports all the world's languages.

Social-networking tools can also promote inclusion if we use

them well. The web is interesting because it is universal; social

networks are interesting because they are not -- they give us a

custom view, a manageable and trusted slice. On the other

hand, tools do not serve us well if they reinforce -boundaries

even when we want to stretch our social networks, or migrate

from one tool to another, or leave a social network entirely. We

must find ways to balance these needs.
http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/03/web-at-25/tim-berners-lee/viewgallery/332460


5/5

Privacy, free expression and security

An open web does not imply that all information must be public.

In fact, privacy is fundamental: groups of any size must be able

to communicate internally in confidence to function at all. Like

privacy, freedom of speech and expression are necessary for

society, and are essential to democracy. Censorship on the web -

- the blocking of certain websites -- directly attacks free

expression and the freedom to be informed. Censorship violates

free speech in obvious ways -- spying more insidiously: it has achilling effect by creating fear of retribution. That is why the

right to privacy is even more important where free speech is not

protected. The 25th anniversary of the web is an ideal moment

for us as citizens and consumers to call for a review of the laws

and standards that govern our rights online. Working with the

World Wide Web Foundation and others, I have launched the

Web We Want campaign to foster debate on how to resolve the

trade-offs between security and privacy, and between the needs

of business and decentralised innovation. This campaign will

help everyone to recognise the web's value, speak out in itsdefence and take action to ensure its future.

It seems unthinkable that the web is already 25 years old, and

many of us can barely imagine life without it. We all helped to

build this, and the web's future still depends on us. All of us

must use our creativity, skills and experience to make it better:

more powerful, more safe, more fair and more open. Let us

choose the Web We Want, and thus, the world we want.

Tim Berners-Lee is the inventor of the world wide web. The Web

We Want campaign is at webwewant.org (/webwewant.org)

MORE FROM WIRED'S WEB AT 25 SERIES

Marc Andreessen: embed the internet

(http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/03/web-at-

25/marc-andreessen)

Jimmy Wales: the developing world(http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/03/web-at-

25/jimmy-wales)

Mikko Hypponen: government surveillance


25/mikko-hypponen)

Joi Ito: 'it's a living, evolving organism'


25/joi-ito)

Nigel Shadbolt: augmented intelligence


25/nigel-shadbolt)

Deep

Hass

WIRE

(/ne

10/0

demi

READ NEXT

(/news/arc

WIRED
http://www.wired.co.uk/wired-2014http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-10/02/deepmind-founder-demis-hassabis-wired-2014http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-10/02/deepmind-founder-demis-hassabis-wired-2014http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/03/web-at-25/tim-berners-lee/viewgallery/332459http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/03/web-at-25/nigel-shadbolthttp://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/03/web-at-25/joi-itohttp://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/03/web-at-25/mikko-hypponenhttp://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/03/web-at-25/jimmy-waleshttp://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/03/web-at-25/marc-andreessenhttp://www.wired.co.uk/webwewant.org

wired - 2014 - tim berners-lee on the web at 25 the past , present and future

Documents