If I had a bucket list, then Sir Tim Berners-Lee would be at the top of that list. I wish FT’s Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson had asked him more questions about the role of data and mobile and their impact on society instead of spending so many words on pita, ice-tea and the Olympics ceremony. Okay, maybe I am being nerdish. That said, I thought these comments by Sir Tim are a good reminder of web and its ethos. It is strange why the world forgets them so often. 

You can’t propose that something be a universal space and at the same time keep control of it.

The whole web had always been done by people who were very internationally-minded, very public-spirited, and very excited about the outcome.

The web is a social invention as much as a technical invention. It’s the whole cat and mouse game between the readers and writers that makes the web work.

I think a lot of great software has been written by people who are scratching a short-term itch, something which has been niggling them for ages, but in the back of their mind they’ve got a wonderful long-term plan.

I wish folks at tech-giants would internalize these things.