Tim Berners-Lee awarded the British Order of Merit

MarsBar writes "The BBC is reporting that Sir Tim Berners-Lee has been awarded The Order of Merit, a royal award granted directly by the Queen. Previous recipients have included Florence Nightingale, Sir Winston Churchill, Bertrand Russell, Graham Greene, Sir Edward Elgar, Mother Teresa and Margaret Thatcher."

discussed it with my kids

[bcrowell (177657)]

I discussed this with my kids just now, and they agree 100% with the award. After all, this is the man who made barbie.com [barbie.com] possible, as well as trollz.com [trollz.com], clubpenguin [clubpenguin.com], and neopets [neopets.com].

Re:discussed it with my kids

[by Anonymous Coward]

He also made this [goatse.ch] possible. Thanks, Tim Berners-Lee...

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[GFree (853379)]

This would be the first time I've ever see an apparent goatse link rate funny on Slashdot.

Then again, it might not even be goatse, but I'm still too-damn scared to click. :)

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[Faylone (880739)]

Your fear is justified. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to drive nails into my eyes.

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[Chandon Seldon (43083)]

It's safe. It's the really cute and funny kitty cat picture that occasionally shows up on goatse-looking URLs.

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[ncc74656 (45571)]

Actually, posts containing goatse seem to be getting modded +5 something a lot these days.

Do you suppose that a goatse.cx reference getting modded 5, Troll would qualify as a sign of the apocalypse?

Good for him...

[WIAKywbfatw (307557)]

Simply put, Sir Tim Berners-Lee is the Johannes Gutenberg of the Internet.

His simple invention, and his polite, modest manner should make him the IT icon of our time. I wonder, though, how many people could even tell you what he's done or recognise him by his picture?

Good for him. He deserves all the recognition that he can get.

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[WIAKywbfatw (307557)]

And, yes, before someone decides to educate me about (D)ARPANET, etc, I do know that there's more to the Internet than the world wide web.

My point was that what Gutenberg did to the printed word (made it faster, easier and thus more accessible to all), Berners-Lee did to the online word (put together a system that made it simple to use and thus acheived the same feat).

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[rs79 (71822)]

I don't get as excited about Sir Tim as perhaps maybe I should. It was Einer Stefferud who invented MIME which is really at the heart of http, and Brian Reid whose PhD thesis, SCRIBE, begat SGML which begat HTML. Sir Tim just put the bits together which seems to be to be another one of those inevitabilities.

Stef also invented and ran the first mailing list and Brian is also responsible for the firewall, Alta Vista and the laserwriter among many others.

Re:Good for him...

[SenseiLeNoir (699164)]

Well the key is, Sir Tim did a LOT to make it accessible. Sure some of the ground work was already done, namely: TCP/IP, SGML, MIME, etc.

What Sir Tim and his team did is:
- Created HTML, which was arguably much simpler than SGML (yes it also allowed some mediocre "designers" to also design pages, but ultimately it lead to greater adoption)
- Created the HTTP protocol, which by far and large was the greatest "enabler" of the technology, ie allow anonymous access to the information held in a ordered and secure manner.
- Still actively in charge of W3C, and creating new standards, largely without breaking old ones.
- Helped begat XML.
- Did not try and patent it.

So his contributions are large, and he is still actively participating. More importantly, he didnt try to patent it, but freed it.

Agh, bollocks!

[jotaeleemeese (303437)]

Do you remember gopher, do you?

Or even ftp using a browser.

the http:/// [http] is not casual. it simply wasn't clear back then that you would not need to specify the protocol used in the future.

The idea of linking documents in a computer network was revolutionary and in spite of all the flash and youtubes and what have you, that simple idea is the core of the Internet as we use it today.

THe disparate bits and pieces to create it where all around the place but it took the ingenuity of Sir Tim to put all those bits

Re:Good for him...

[by Anonymous Coward]

"I wonder, though, how many people could even tell you what he's done or recognise him by his picture?"

Being unknown to the filthy masses is the mark of the true Engineer.
Sales and Marketing types are popular, Engineers get shit done.

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[Slashamatic (553801)]

I wouldn't say that, it is just TBLs approach to the wide-adoption/reuse of his invention. In a way, the web could be said to be an outgrowth of many existing technologies (Gopher and the original hypertext), but it was so successful because all he did was not to seek patent or copyright protection, just lobbying for interoperability.

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[bkr1_2k (237627)]

I think receiving the Order of Merit is most likely not just because of what he did but how he did it. It's a greater measure of the man that he did this for the good of others (with some personal gain for sure but not strictly for personal gain) and that's why he received an award that only 24 living people on the planet can hold.

That puts him in very high regard and he should be. That said, I knew nothing about him until reading the article. Some people want fame and glory, others just want to do what

Re:Good for him...

[pipingguy (566974)]

When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

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[SenseiLeNoir (699164)]

Its a pity I don't have mod points, but if I did , I would definitely mod you insightful. Its very true that true success is often unnoticed, simply because it "works".

Meanwhile in other news...

[by Anonymous Coward]

Steve Ballmer was awarded the Iron Cross which he immediately threw across the room when he learned that Himmler was considering migrating the Reich's infrastructure to GNU/Linux.

What no Diana?

[dwater (72834)]

I don't see Saint Diana on the list. Strange that...

Re:What no Diana?

[Don_dumb (927108)]

There probably was a nomination but Prince Philip had it killed. Or at least that is what Mohammed Al-Fayed will claim.

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[dwater (72834)]

> That might have to do with the order being limited to 24 *living* members.

Aha :) That'd do it...

Of course, the other bit was the whole point in my post - if it could be said to be a point...pointless, more like.

And don't forget T S Eliot

[Flying pig (925874)]

T S Eliot also got the OM. For those who don't know (this is after all Slashdot) he was the New Englander who came to England, published some enormously influential poems (The Waste Land, Ash Wednesday, Four Quartets), wrote religious plays that actually turned a profit and still get performed, but above all was a hard working director of Faber & Faber, the literary publisher, and had a lot to do with making it a very successful literary publisher. And he was no religious fundamentalist: his religious writings are a million miles from the awful stuff in "Christian" bookshops and he was as likely to be writing about Hinduism or Buddhism as the Bible.

The point being, that Berners-Lee is actually in much better company than the list given in the introduction might have suggested, and this award extends beyond the British gene pool to Americans like Eliot and Anglo-Americans like Churchill.

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[GauteL (29207)]

"The point being, that Berners-Lee is actually in much better company than the list given in the introduction might have suggested, and this award extends beyond the British gene pool to Americans like Eliot and Anglo-Americans like Churchill."

I find it very amusing that you suggest that Churchill is somehow "beyond the British gene pool".

Yes, Churchill had an american mother (of english descent), but he was born and raised in England (at Blenheim Palace no less) and his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was

previous recipients....

[silver (790)]

"Previous recipients have included Florence Nightingale, Sir Winston Churchill, Bertrand Russell, Graham Greene, Sir Edward Elgar, Mother Teresa and Margaret Thatcher."

Damn, talk about the odd one out!

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[tryfan (235825)]

Yeay, I was really surprised to see Thatcher among those nice people!

Re:previous recipients....

[lysse (516445)]

Yes, my immediate response was "How the hell did that bitch get one"? I didn't even realise Mother Teresa was eligible.

We all should know by now

[the_kanzure (1100087)]

Internet != WWW.

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[SEMW (967629)]

okay, you just posted exactly the same thing I did and get modded up and I get modded down? I guarantee a british guy modded my post.

Hardly. To quote from your post [slashdot.org]:

"The inventor of the world wide web has been awarded the Order of Merit"
I can't believe someone would be ignorant/arrogant enough to actually name one person as the inventor of the internet

The GP was correcting your apparent ignorance on the subject. Neither Tim B-L nor the article summary ever claimed he invented the internet, only the World Wide Web.

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[SirSlud (67381)]

Nice try on the troll. The inclusion of Al Gore was a little too much tho.

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[SenseiLeNoir (699164)]

No, but, if Al Gore's work directly starts translating to a reduction of CO2, and in the future his efforts are seen to have really made a difference, he would indeed be eligible. His crusade against Global Climate change has been there for 30 years.

Re:Margaret Thatcher!!!!!!! FFS ... :-(

[terrymr (316118)]

You forget that Thatcher invented "soft frozen ice-cream"

I kid you not.

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[dbIII (701233)]

She also probably stopped WWIII by convincing Reagan to actually talk to Russians instead of threaten them from afar. Stopping the incredibly expensive British nuclear energy program without stopping nuclear research was also a good move.

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[by Anonymous Coward]

No he's really not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_ice_cream [wikipedia.org]

Re:Margaret Thatcher!!!!!!! FFS ... :-(

[Brickwall (985910)]

Yes, she only broke the destructive unions that were impoverishing Britain, won a war that many thought was impossible to win, and was a staunch ally of the US in the fight against communist totalitarianism, despite severe criticism of that policy from the weedy left, who were all preaching detente and co-existence. Thanks in part to her help, over 100 million Eastern Europeans are now living free and better lives. Yes, what a loathsome witch.

Twit.

No, she merely had the nation pay for it in jobs.

[sethstorm (512897)]

Thanks in part to her help, over 100 million Eastern Europeans are now living free and better lives.
Well, mind that Ronald "PATCO" Reagan did some heavy lifting [wikipedia.org] to help on that one.

Yes, she only broke the destructive unions that were impoverishing Britain
No, she simply gave businesses the green light to sell out on their country, with hollow results. Same poverty, just swept under the rug, and with foreign knockoffs of tons of UK vehicles.

The only thing that she did was to make the UK serve as a reminder of

Re:No, she merely had the nation pay for it in job

[dbIII (701233)]

Hmm, the Tom Clancy dedication - Ronnie, the man who won the war has a fan it appears. In hindsight now that we have the soviet documents about how their empire was falling apart the Stategic Defense Initiative and other attempts to provoke some military action in the cold war were an expensive, dangerous and counterproductive sideshow with a variety of corrupt profiteers feeding off the edges while contibuting toys that did not work.

Re:No, she merely had the nation pay for it in job

[mike2R (721965)]

The only thing that she did was to make the UK serve as a reminder of what happens when you institute such anti-domestic policies.

Why don't you move to France? You could discuss the merits of protectionism with the locals in the dole queue.

The unions were out of control, even the last labour government had tried to reign them in - only to be humiliated. Brutal, yes it was. But it only needed to be quite so brutal because the idiots of the previous decades protected massive nationalised companies from real competition. Thats what killed British industry, decades of protectionism that left us with manufacturing industries that hadn't a hope of competing globally. Thatcher just convinced the corpse to lie down, and IMO this was her greatest acomplishment.

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[dbIII (701233)]

ally of the US in the fight against communist totalitarianism, despite severe criticism of that policy from the weedy left, who were all preaching detente and co-existence

Hang on, you have that as the complete opposite of history - Thatcher was pushing for co-existance and talking Reagan out of war. What we got was Thatcher, Reagan and Gorby sitting down at the same table on multiple occasions and a peaceful solution that looks prety good to me from here a few decades on. The hard line imagined here wou

Re:Margaret Thatcher!!!!!!! FFS ... :-(

[Brickwall (985910)]

Hang on, you have that as the complete opposite of history - Thatcher was pushing for co-existance

Well, the following is from Wikipedia, so you can take it with a grain of salt if you like:

On 19 January 1976, she made a speech in Kensington Town Hall in which she made a scathing attack on the Soviet Union. The most famous part of her speech ran: "The Russians are bent on world dominance, and they are rapidly acquiring the means to become the most powerful imperial nation the world has seen. The men in the Soviet Politburo do not have to worry about the ebb and flow of public opinion. They put guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns."

Also from Wikipedia:

n the Cold War, Mrs. Thatcher supported United States President Ronald Reagan's policies of deterrence against the Soviets. This contrasted with the policy of détente which the West had pursued during the 1970s, and caused friction with allies who still adhered to the idea of détente. US forces were permitted by Mrs. Thatcher to station nuclear cruise missiles at British bases, arousing mass protests by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

However, I will agree with you that when Gorby came to power, she famously said "He is a man we can do business with". But perhaps she sensed that Gorby was a man who could be talked into the sort of reforms that were needed to break up the Soviet bloc. I'm not on intimate speaking terms with the lady, so I'll never know for sure.

At any rate, I never suggested she wanted to go to war with the Soviets, just that she wanted to put up a strong front againt them, while practically every other country in Europre was begging to make some deal with the Soviets that would have kept the entire Warsaw pact intact.

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[dbIII (701233)]

I was reading the newspapers at the time and paying attention. Reality has ended up a little different to what you have described - hence the lack of a war at the time in Eastern Europe. What she did would be seen as "appeasement" by hardliners that forget that you do not have to give away your country to talk to those you disagree with. There was no fighting, there was negotiation.

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[gowen (141411)]

was a staunch ally of the US in the fight against communist totalitarianism

And an equally staunch ally of South Africa in the fight against racial equality.

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[spectrokid (660550)]

I 'd say she cured the disease but nearly killed the patient. Of all my (Danish) companies factories, the UK one is still the one with the most problems because of the negative influence of their unions. Hard handed cleaning was necessary. But Thatcher also paved the way for disasters like the privatization of British Water and the total underfunding of British Railway system. At one time she closed coal mines which were still profitable, just to break the power of the mining unions. That, in my book,

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[hoofie (201045)]

I think the plan [Operation Mikado] referred to landing a C130 onto an airfield [Rio Grande] in ARGENTINA and then attacking the aircraft, which were being used to lauch Exocets, and kill all the pilots. When it was presented to the SAS, it was remaned "Operation Certain Death". I remember reading one sergeant and one other point-blank refused to do it, understanding full well that such a mission would be plain old suicide. [You don't put 55 SAS troops into that kind of situation, they are too valuable. And

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[0123456789 (467085)]

I know I shouldn't feed the troll, but what war did Thatcher deliberately start? I'm not a particular fan of Thatcher, but there are more than enough facts out there about her that there's no need to fabricate criticisms.

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[hoofie (201045)]

Well done - another muppet who's quite happy to make puerile assertions without having the bottle to put their login id against it.

Re:Apparently even /. has shifted right.

[Brickwall (985910)]

Not that you're an ignorant fool, but from 1975-1990, when Thatcher was PM, British GDP increased from 100,000 million pounds to 557,000 million pounds. That's about 11% per year on average, and far from "destroying prosperity", I think most countries would consider that pretty good economic performance. The changes she made made it more inviting for other companies to come and invest in Britain. For example, the company I was working for in 1979 when Thatcher came to power, Mitel Corp, built two plants in Britain. Later, when Terry Mathews left Mitel and started Newbridge Networks, he built more plants in Britain, creating thousands of jobs. I remember sitting in on a management meeting a few years after Thatcher came in, and Mathews was asked if he would have invested in Britain under a Labour government. He just snorted derisively and said "No".

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[HalfFlat (121672)]

Those GDP figures do not take into account inflation. In 2003 pounds, the 1975 GDP was 577,489 million pounds and the 1990 GDP was 814,956 million pounds [eh.net]. That's an annual increase of approximately 2.3%. Or 2.2% if you look at per capita GDP growth.

Re:Apparently even /. has shifted right.

[by Anonymous Coward]

Not that you're an ignorant fool, but from 1975-1990, when Thatcher was PM

Thatcher came to power in 1979, not 1975. Bear that in mind next time you call someone an ignorant fool.

British GDP increased from 100,000 million pounds to 557,000 million pounds. That's about 11% per year on average, and far from "destroying prosperity", I think most countries would consider that pretty good economic performance.

As another poster has commented, those figures don't take into account inflation, which reached 18% at one point. Also, between 1978 and 1983, manufacturing output dropped 30%.

Later, when Terry Mathews left Mitel and started Newbridge Networks, he built more plants in Britain, creating thousands of jobs.

I'm sure that felt great for the 3.6 million who were unemployed in the early 80s (more than three times the number unemployed under the previous Labour government).

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[meringuoid (568297)]

Labour could only get into power by espousing Conservative policies.

Have you read Labours '97 manifesto? ... a national minimum wage, improving universal free-at-the-point-of-service healthcare, windfall taxes on big business, increased European integration.

Uhh? That's two elections ago!

Correct. Now, when did Labour get into power, allegedly by espousing Conservative policies? Was it by any chance two elections ago, in 1997?

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[smoker2 (750216)]

And how did she achieve this ?
By selling off the state owned utilities, that WE had paid for through taxes for generations, with the resulting loss of public accountability.
Now our water distribution network is owned by the international conglomerates, as is our power and others. Hardly any of our engineering companies are british owned, and even then, they are usually owned by finance houses (instead of professional engineers) so they are under the threat of downsizing/asset stripping/resale at the slight

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[bkr1_2k (237627)]

ha, took me a second. I'm surprised someone has modded this up. Someone has to find this funny. Come on mods, let's give a little love here.