RE: [xml-dev] Expertise and Innovation - was Re: [xml-dev] Non-Borg servers can authenticate Borg clients (Was Re: [xml-dev] Re: Cookies at XML Europe 2004 -- Call for Participation)

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

From: Bob Wyman [mailto:bob@wyman.us]

>Didn't Apollo's machines have a distributed file system?

Yessir.  We were building hypertext systems using SGML in the 
1980s on the Apollos complete with the Context authoring tools 
and scripted harvesting of content all being published to a 
Write Many Read Many disk.  An obvious no-brainer except for 
the SGML because WYSIWYG was king and its followers were 
at war with the markup community.  Had HTML not been successful, 
it is possible the markup meme would have been fodder for 
rediscovery instead of reproduction.

>My first impression of TB-L's URL's was that they were simply
>a way to bring the equivalent of VMS file names to UNIX.

My impression of URLs was the same as yours.   
The timing was that the Internet had just been 
released to public use, and the vast majority of homes didn't 
have PCs just as they became affordable.  The web gave the 
homeowner a reason to buy them:  free content.

It wasn't innovation; it was timing and shrewd choices plus 
getting college students to do the heavy lifting.  But 
put it all together and it was successful, so STimbl 
gets the credit, the accolades, and the burdens.

If you want to see another domain where history blew it, 
look at the history of modern logic and mathematics.  John 
Sowa writes long and lovingly on that topic.

len