Inventors · Profile 2
Tim Berners-Lee: the Web without a licensing fee
In March 1989, while working at CERN, Tim Berners-Lee proposed an internet-based hypertext system for scientists who needed to share information across institutions and incompatible computers. By the end of 1990, he had written the first browser, server, and core specifications. Robert Cailliau helped turn the idea into a formal project and later worked with CERN management and lawyers on its public release. NCSA Mosaic made the Web easier to use on ordinary computers in 1993.
On 30 April 1993, CERN released three pieces of Web software into the public domain: the line-mode browser, the basic server, and a library of common code. Anyone could use, copy, modify, or distribute them. In 1994, CERN put later versions under an open-source license that retained CERN’s copyright while preserving free use and modification.
How was the builder paid?
Berners-Lee was paid for his work through institutions rather than a fee charged to every website. He worked at CERN, then moved to MIT in 1994 and founded the World Wide Web Consortium. He later held professorships and cofounded the company Inrupt. The sources here do not provide a complete account of his personal income, but they do establish that CERN’s early Web release carried no royalty for him or CERN.
What remained open?
The early software was free to use and modify, and the basic Web specifications could be implemented without buying permission from a protocol owner. That openness did not extend automatically to everything built on top. Browsers, websites, identity systems, and hosting platforms could still be proprietary. We cannot know how a different licensing decision would have changed the Web’s growth. Under the release CERN chose, developers and institutions could adopt the basic software without a licensing negotiation or payment.