www (10. 709)

On this day in 1993, the decision was made to release the hypertext markup language that underpins the world-wide web into the public domain, making it freely available for anyone to use for any purpose, and facilitating navigation on the developing internet—rejecting the option that inventor Tim Berners-Lee (see above) along with the research laboratory at CERN had to license the browser-based infrastructure, believing that keeping the platform as open and decentralised as possible was the only want to encourage growth and maximise participation. It’s a challenge to try to imagine how the world might look had this pivotal decision gone the other way, turning a public utility, a public good into a commodity. Much more at the links above.