Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by buttspelunker 1245 days ago
Are you talking about CERN's decision to put their web client and server source code into the public domain in 1993? It seems like a stretch - to me - to attribute the success of the web to that decision.
2 comments
andylynch 1245 days ago
It was probably a big factor. Gopher was a real competitor initially but the University of Minnesota which owned the IP started trying to charge license fees in Feb ‘93- I suspect CERN’s decision was a response to this as well as MOSAIC’s similar efforts around the same time.
link
buttspelunker 1244 days ago
Was there a single university that didn't have NCSA Mosaic installed and available to their X terminals after that?

This still doesn't add up to me.

link
breck 1245 days ago
You couldn't predict that CERN's protocol would win, but you COULD predict that a public domain protocol would win.

Proof:

For every pair {protocolX,protocolY} where functionality(protocolX) = functionality(protocolY) && isPublicDomain(protocolX) == true && isPublicDomain(protocolY) == false, then speedAndUtility(protocolX) >> speedAndUtility(protocolY).

https://breckyunits.com/how-the-public-domain-can-win.html

link