Vous trouverez ce fameux mail de Tim Berners-Lee à la fin de cet article.

Je me permet ici de traduire quelques phrases qui illustrent, de mon point de vue, les ferments de l'énorme réussite qu'est devenu le World Wide Web.

Tout d'abord, l'auteur précise simplement les objectifs du projet...:

  "The WorldWideWeb (WWW) project aims to allow links
  to be made to any information anywhere".
  Le projet WorldWideWeb (WWW) a pour objectif de
  permettre de faire des liens vers tout type d'information,
  n'importe où.

... puis il précise que son code est libre en utilisation et en diffusion ...:

  "It's (the code, ndt) copyright CERN but free distribution
  and use is not normally a problem".
  Le code est soumis à un Copyright du CERN, mais la libre
  utilisation et diffusion n'est pas un problème.

... et il donne la possibilité de modifier le code:

  "We ... have code ... You can use this ...
  You can also hack it ...".
  Nous avons du code. Vous pouvez l'utiliser ....
  Vous pouvez aussi le hacker ...

Enfin, il fait un appel à contributions:

  Collaborators welcome! Collaborateurs bienvenus!

Je ne sais pas si c'est le génie technique de la chose, ou la liberté logicielle qui a fait la réussite du web. C'est sans doute les deux ...

Le Mail de Tim Berners-Lee

From: timbl@info .cern.ch (Tim Berners-Lee)

Newsgroups: alt.hypertext

Subject: Re: Qualifiers on Hypertext links...

Date: 6 Aug 91 14:56:20 GMT

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

World Wide Web project

CERN

1. Geneva 23, Switzerland