by JOHN NAUGHTON
Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web PHOTO/Wikipedia
1 The importance of “permissionless innovation”
The thing that is most extraordinary about the internet is the way it enables permissionless innovation. This stems from two epoch-making design decisions made by its creators in the early 1970s: that there would be no central ownership or control; and that the network would not be optimised for any particular application: all it would do is take in data-packets from an application at one end, and do its best to deliver those packets to their destination.
It was entirely agnostic about the contents of those packets. If you had an idea for an application that could be realised using data-packets (and were smart enough to write the necessary software) then the network would do it for you with no questions asked. This had the effect of dramatically lowering the bar for innovation, and it resulted in an explosion of creativity.
What the designers of the internet created, in effect, was a global machine for springing surprises. The web was the first really big surprise and it came from an individual – Tim Berners-Lee – who, with a small group of helpers, wrote the necessary software and designed the protocols needed to implement the idea. And then he launched it on the world by putting it on the Cern internet server in 1991, without having to ask anybody’s permission.
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4 Many of the things that are built on the web are neither free nor open
Mark Zuckerberg was able to build Facebook because the web was free and open. But he hasn’t returned the compliment: his creation is not a platform from which young innovators can freely spring the next set of surprises. The same holds for most of the others who have built fortunes from exploiting the facilities offered by the web. The only real exception is Wikipedia.
5 Tim Berners-Lee is Gutenberg’s true heir
In 1455, with his revolution in printing, Johannes Gutenberg single-handedly launched a transformation in mankind’s communications environment – a transformation that has shaped human society ever since. Berners-Lee is the first individual since then to have done anything comparable.
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Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales: ‘It’s true, I’m not a billionaire. So?’ – interview
by CAROLE CADWALLADR
Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales PHOTO/Suki Dhanda/Observer
In a New York Times profile of you last year, there was a suggestion that it might be nice for you to do something that you actually get paid for.
Well, that was the weirdest piece I’ve ever read. It was false on multiple points.
They made quite a big deal about the fact that you were the only world famous internet entrepreneur who didn’t actually have all that much money.
That fact is true, I’m not a billionaire. So? You aren’t either, so are not most people. It’s kind of a stupid thing to bang on about.
But most of us haven’t set up this phenomenal thing, the fifth most popular website in the world.
Yeah, but I love it. It’s so fun.
Do you get fed up with that question? Do you ever regret donating Wikipedia to the Wikipedia Foundation and not turning it into a commercial enterprise?
No. I mean, I get asked it less now than I used to. But it’s one of the least interesting questions I think there is, so …
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If Wikipedia were capitalised in the same way as these Silicon Valley companies, wouldn’t you have more money to do more things?
No, no, because if we were in that situation, we wouldn’t care about the languages, for example. If we were supported by advertising, we would care about entries that get another million users in the US but not what might be of interest to another million readers in India. A big part of my aesthetic vision for Wikipedia is that it is like a temple for the mind. I’m not anti-commerce, but I don’t think it belongs in every aspect of life.
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