[ih] W3C origins [was: Re: J.C.R. Licklider]

[Brian E Carpenter]

On 01-Nov-26 15:50, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:

> Speaking of Internet History, the ARPANET et al --- There's another
> player from the early days of The Internet that may not be well known to
> Internet historians - J.C.R. Licklider

He's fully credited in any serious history of the Internet, I think,
e.g. Katie Hafner's book.

> - Lick's vision was continued after he retired by his "chief of staff" 
> at MIT, Al Vezza, who convinced Tim Berners-Lee to come to MIT and lead 
> the W3C from there. 

I would add that Michael Dertouzos was *at least* as influential as Al
in attracting TimBL to MIT. Probably more, because Dertouzos's old pal
George Metakides (an MIT alum) was the senior official in the European
Commissionin charge of funding the European end of the W3C.

My understanding at the time was that Dertouzos and Metakides (they
were both Greek) had decided that the main part of the W3C would be at
MIT, with European Commission (EC) funding, but with a small European
"pole". Metakides thought it would be a fine idea to place the European
unit at CERN, but CERN refused to be part of an exercise whose main
result would be to send European funds to the USA.

Al Vezza was very much in the room for these discussions. I wasn't, but
I knew all the CERN participants, and in fact met them in the departure
lounge at Brussels airport on their way back from the critical meeting.
(I was in Brussels the same day for a meeting related to growing Internet
capacity in Europe.) The CERN team in that discussion, from memory, was
Mike Sendall, Tim B-L, Robert Cailliau, and Francois Fluckiger. Maybe David
Williams, our Division Leader, was there too. All of them except Tim were
flabbergasted by the idea that CERN (a non-EC institution) should be used
to route money from the EC to MIT.

I heard within a few days that the CERN management definitely refused
this. It seemed politically dangerous and was it even legal? Also it seemed
outside CERN's mission as a physics laboratory. And nobody missed that
Metakides and Dertouzos were buddies. So in the end, INRIA in France
acted as the European pole.

Regards/Ngā mihi
    Brian Carpenter