Interview with Robert Cailliau, co-creator of the web
May 3, 2008 1 comment
I received an e-mail interview made with Robert Cailliau, co-creator of the web (along with Tim Berners-Lee). Frankly I do not know who did the interview, the date or where it was published, if someone you know and want to tell me I put aquii, be very grateful!
In this interview Robert Cailliau, one of the creators of the web, talks about the start of the global network, on the freedom of software, transparencies to preserve individual freedoms and capitalist hunger of large enterprises and telecommunications software.
Interview with Robert Cailliau
History has yet to book the Belgian Robert Cailliau and her partner of searches, the English Tim Berners-Lee, an area in the list of great inventors of humanity. There are 17 years, both have developed a tool of communication, initially intended only to search, whose acronym speaks for itself: World Wide Web (WWW), the worldwide network of computers. But, contrary to what one can imagine, Cailliau, engineer, 60 years, is not a rich man, not chairing a large multinational information technology, nor is an enthusiast of technology.
Caillau is almost a skeptical, someone who shows up on your disappointments. Avesso to fame, the engineer today is rooted in northern France, in a rural region. It has no name in the phone list, has no cell phone and, ironically, even update your site. In this interview, the researcher shows bitterness when talking about the use of excessively commercial global network. His praise is saved for the blogs and to Wikipedia, collective constructions of information. Among the targets of their criticisms are also Microsoft, MySpace and Second Life, companies or products which calls "opaque" and that it causes fear, whether by
concentrate in excess of information privacy of their users, either by diverting the focus of reality. Following are the main excerpts of the interview.
You recently stated to be disappointed about the evolution of the Web. Why?
There are many points on which I am pleased: Wikipedia, the blogs, the circles of people who have few things to share. Indeed there is not much beyond a few points on which I am disappointed: the speed of understanding that the global network is a collective construction. Businessmen, politicians and journalists often do not understand that. We could move faster if we had cooperated more instead promote competition in a matter in which the competition is often disastrous.
Looking back, as you evaluate your invention?
The web is the result of years of work and courage of many people, all egressos of universities and research institutes. Entrepreneurs often poorly understood to have taken wrong decisions. Take, for example the bubble of business. "With". The lesson that shooting is that there is gap between the rational and humanistic behaviour and behaviour inspired by the desire to make lots of money without much work. But on the other hand, the Web is a tool that does not let others manipulate: democracy seems to Imbricata's Web site. That is, which irritates the experts who want to take it and also the dictators and the heads of oppressive regimes.
He had a conscience, when the invention, the revolution opened for the global network?
For the academic community, yes. For the community in general, no. I surpreendo every day with the ingenious uses of all order that people do web.
In his view, the global network caused a social revolution?
Many sociologists and economists believe that it embodies the global village announced by Marshall McLuhan. There is a strong trend, but not always able to perform all the ideas we have at the beginning of our projects. Regarding the global village, we must ask himself what he thought about McLuhan today. But he is already dead. At any rate, it is true that thanks to the global network formed by the global organisations are few people could be, if grouped together as if they were in the same city.
You have stated that underestimated the impact commercial web. Why?
There was one of our priorities. We wanted provide a useful tool for researchers and quality. It was the web that arrebatou the attention of trade and business of telecommunication on the Internet, which at that time, in 1993, had 25 years. It was surprising to see how they wanted to get hold when there was the slightest suspicion that it might be possible to make easy money.
You vislumbrou the new economy in 1990?
I do not even know what "new economy" means. When I think that farmers around the city I barely manage to win their lives and that we, consumers of food, insisted on paying ridiculous prices, I believe there are other things to discuss that self "new economy". There is nothing true in that of "new economy". What is true is the changes in climate, the overpopulation of the planet, the ideological-religious extremism. There is an enormity of megabytes that fly everywhere, but not communication. Everything is just a leak of real communication. It is dangerous. That is why I do not have cell phone and I do not freqüento sites of virtual communities.
Then he does not believe that sustainable development model, with companies of high value in the stock market and with few employees.
In the digital age, there is no room for only one company in each sector. It is in differential equations, and for a long time that is proved by economists and mathematicians. For me, this type of business, which moves with
information, should be very transparent. Who produces software should keep them open and publicly verifiable.
The worldwide network promoted piracy on the Internet. What do you think this? The Web is, after all, a good or a bad development for the economy?
The idea of intellectual property always incomodou me a little. On one hand, it is true that someone who works hard to create an artistic product as a novel, a movie or a music must, of course, able to feed and live. Therefore, he needs income from that creation. But that is why I am in mourning for the possibility of micro, which would pay the artist directly by the consumer. Only that would eliminate the middlemen, they do not like this tool. The problem is that the more the price of a product is high, plus we have a doubly perverse effect: few people buying and many people pirateia. Capitalism, as the communist and other ismos, is the era before digital. We should enter into a period of collaboration. We must apply all the knowledge that science has given us already. He is already there, you must master it before it is too late. And
it will not be dogmatic with proposals of the left or right.
The web can be a formidable tool in order to preserve life on the planet.
Instead, you did not think it receives too much propaganda, proposals for virtual crimes and pornography in your mailbox?
It is… But none of that is important before we should do.
How to contain these problems? He advocates some kind of regulation for the global network?
Yes, but by the world community. Let us do a global convention on the subject. There are other differences between large economic blocs, political, religious, outdated doctrines, once we face a bad start. At any rate, I have no fear of states, which can help create standards and preserving the privacy of individuals and transparency of companies. I'm afraid of the multinationals is opaque and avarentas. Look what has made MySpace with thousands of users who appear in their records (Caillau refers to the concentration of individual information and invasion of privacy). What right? Read "Terms of Service" of these companies. - Read the terms of the contract Hotmail. The State, first of all, we are. It is these companies that there is no democracy.
Young people make fortune by creating sites like Google, YouTube, Facebook and other derivatives of the invention of the worldwide network. What do you think this?
Good for them. And they have worked hard to win. It is another work, done with other talents. I wish them good luck. Since its actions are transparent.
What, in your view, the future of the Web and the Internet?
It is impossible to predict. Personally, I believe that the future belongs to a more artificial intelligence than the human. In the meantime, we will do everything and nothing at the same time. But let us not forget that until further order, while we'll need to eat before our screens.
So we need some way to preserve the planet.














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