Tim Berners-Lee, de onderzoeker in kwestie, had een systeem uitgeknobbeld om de her en der verspreide tekstdocumenten bij zijn werkgever, het Centre Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN) te kunnen terugvinden. "Als je interesse hebt in de broncode, mail me dan. Het is nog een vroeg prototype", waarschuwt Berners-Lee over zijn 'world wide web'.

Intussen is www een begrip en een miljardenindustrie, waarin honderdduizenden mensen hun brood verdienen. Het web heeft traditionele internetdiensten als usenet, ftp en irc overvleugeld. Ze bestaan allemaal nog, maar staan ten dienste van het web of fungeren tegenwoordig vooral voor de distributie van bestanden.

Hierna het originele en allereerste internetbericht:

Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!cernvax!info
From: timbl@info .cern.ch (Tim Berners-Lee)
Newsgroups: alt.hypertext
Subject: Re: Qualifiers on Hypertext links...
Message-ID: <6484@cernvax.cern.ch>
Date: 6 Aug 91 14:56:20 GMT
References: <1991Aug2.115241@ardor.enet.dec.com>
Sender: n...@cernvax.cern.ch
Lines: 52

In article <1991Aug2.115...@ardor.enet.dec.com> kan...@ardor.enet.dec.com (Nari
Kannan) writes:
>
> Is anyone reading this newsgroup aware of research or development efforts
in
> the
> following areas:
>
> 1. Hypertext links enabling retrieval from multiple heterogeneous sources
of
> information?

The WorldWideWeb (WWW) project aims to allow links to be made to any
information anywhere. The address format includes an access method
(=namespace), and for most name spaces a hostname and some sort of path.

We have a prototype hypertext editor for the NeXT, and a browser for line mode
terminals which runs on almost anything. These can access files either locally,
NFS mounted, or via anonymous FTP. They can also go out using a simple protocol
(HTTP) to a server which interprets some other data and returns equivalent
hypertext files. For example, we have a server running on our mainframe
(http://cernvm.cern.ch/FIND in WWW syntax) which makes all the CERN computer
center documentation available. The HTTP protocol allows for a keyword search
on an index, which generates a list of matching documents as annother virtual
hypertext document.

If you're interested in using the code, mail me. It's very prototype, but
available by anonymous FTP from info.cern.ch. It's copyright CERN but free
distribution and use is not normally a problem.

The NeXTstep editor can also browse news. If you are using it to read this,
then click on this: <http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html> to find
out more about the project. We haven't put the news access into the line mode
browser yet.

We also have code for a hypertext server. You can use this to make files
available (like anonymous FTP but faster because it only uses one connection).
You can also hack it to take a hypertext address and generate a virtual
hypertext document from any other data you have - database, live data etc. It's
just a question of generating plain text or SGML (ugh! but standard) mark-up on
the fly. The browsers then parse it on the fly.

The WWW project was started to allow high energy physicists to share data,
news, and documentation. We are very interested in spreading the web to other
areas, and having gateway servers for other data. Collaborators welcome! I'll
post a short summary as a separate article.

Tim Berners-Lee                               t...@info.cern.ch
World Wide Web project                   Tel: +41(22)767 3755
CERN                                              Fax: +41(22)767 7155
1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland             (usual disclaimer)