Please forgive me for sending this out of sync; I had an error with my email setup which led to me replying to the list from the wrong address. I don't think anyone (Berners-Lee included!) would suggest that: On 6 Nov 2006, at 20:56, Sam Tilden wrote:
He should know because he single handed gave us a gift of the world we are supposed to be researching
I think we know enough by now (whether from a social-shaping-of-technology base [1] or indeed from one of the excellent Web histories [2]) to drop the idea of the deus ex machina meets Eureka model of studying the Internet! This is not to criticise TBL in any way - he is certainly an important figure and his writings are useful - but it is work *in context* that interests academic researchers, right? Daithí [1] e.g. Carolyn Marvin's "When Old Technologies Were New" (1988) gives lots of examples, backed up with sources, that assist in understanding how popular understandings of discovery and adoption are flawed. [2] e.g. James Gillies & Robert Caillau "How The Web Was Born" (2000) is the history I relied upon the most in past studies. -- Daithí Mac Síthigh School of Law Trinity College Dublin 2 Ireland school: www.tcd.ie/law blog: www.lexferenda.com sms/tel: +353 86 8193881