WWW: Past, present, and future

In 1980, even though a number of people were working on networked computer systems, the world still suffered from incompatibility between systems. While working at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory, I designed the Enquire program for my own use. This formed the conceptual basis for Web development. The Web's major goal was to be a shared space for the communication of all types of information. The interaction between user and hypertext was to be intuitive. The basic architecture was designed to have specifications that were as independent of each other as possible, for flexibility. The Web design included universal resource identifiers, HTTP for accessing remote information, and HTML for the interchange of hypertext. The use and development of the Web advanced quickly, into such areas as intranets for use within corporations and organizations. Now the Web community must deal with concerns about communications security, electronic commerce, the accessibility of content that is inappropriate for children, and the ability of users to find material they want on the Web. This raises the possibility of government regulations that could affect the Web.