Months After IRC Turned 35 So Does the World Wide Web (WWW)
Yes, IRC predates the Web and it still rocks with IRC still boasting 300,000+ users online (considering not all are tracked/counted in netsplit.de).
The Linux Foundation's Nithya Ruff cannot tell the difference between the Internet and the Web (even in 2024, even though she works in an Internet giant called Amazon) , but this misconception is very commonplace. Many people conflated the ubiquitous Web with Microsoft's "blue E" (Internet Exploder is a misleading name because it says "Internet" - not Web - while it's exploding it) and Mozilla still doesn't know the "I" must be capitalised and why that's very important.
"The WWW turned 35 yesterday," someone reminded us, "apparently."
Well, yes, apparently...
Notice the date. Screenshot included at the top!
Remember that the Web and its various 'branches' were preceded not just by other proposals but also working prototypes, e.g. Xanadu. The Web is the one that truly caught on and its goals (if not licensing) was inspired by GNU. That was years before Linux even existed. The Web became patent-free (at first) and non-profit, never mind what surveillance capitalism would do to it later. It was open before it became OSPS.
One might say that the Web caught on for the same reasons Linux (with GNU) blew past BSD. Linus Torvalds repeatedly explained that the GPL was a large contributor to the success of Linux. Git would later use that same licence and take off very fast.
No news coverage can be found regarding the anniversary of the Web this week, just a tiny handful of blogs.
Long-form articles would be well-overdue, maybe much needed, but there are none. So tells us an associate.
Does today's media not consider such an important anniversary noteworthy? Newsworthy? Celebration-worthy?
If not, what does that tell us about the state of the media?
The father of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee, was a key 'feature' in the opening ceremony at the London Olympics 12 years ago (local copy as WebM). Has he been thrown under the bus, fed to the dogs along with DRM (EME)? The official CERN page has since then been poisoned by JavaScript, which is contrary to what the Web should have been. The World Wide Web Consortium is now GAFAM and they put software patents inside the Web. Gemini software is a response to that, but Google is now hijacking the name. █
"There was a bit of confusion recently regarding the announcement of a 'gnupedia' project. There already exists a free encyclopedia project, with all code GPL'd and all content FDL'd, and that project is Nupedia. I have written an article explaining what happened. Basically, RMS got confused."