Berners-Lee, a British physicist and computer scientist at CERN, had proposed a hypertext system for sharing documents in 1989 and built the first web server and browser on a NeXT computer in 1990. His message explained how to access the project and asked for collaborators. Until then the web had been used mainly inside CERN. In April 1993 CERN placed the web software in the public domain, and the number of websites grew from hundreds to millions within a few years.
In March 1989 Berners-Lee wrote a proposal called "Information Management: A Proposal", describing a way for scientists at CERN to link and share documents across different computers. His boss, Mike Sendall, wrote on the cover: "Vague but exciting." By the end of 1990, working with the Belgian engineer Robert Cailliau, he had written the three essential pieces: the language HTML, the protocol HTTP and the system of web addresses now called URLs, along with a browser-editor and the first server.
The first website, at info.cern.ch, explained the project itself. For months only a few people outside CERN knew about it. On August 6, 1991, Berners-Lee posted a short summary to alt.hypertext, a discussion group for people interested in hypertext, describing the project's aims and inviting others to download the software. "The WWW project was started to allow high energy physicists to share data, news, and documentation," he wrote. "We are very interested in spreading the web to other areas."
Berners-Lee chose not to patent the technology. He later founded the World Wide Web Consortium to develop its standards and was knighted in 2004.
Key people: Tim Berners-Lee, Robert Cailliau