Tim Berners-Lee defends his decision to auction NFT the “WWW” code
This week began a bid for a pack of 10,000 lines of code from the World Wide Web source through a non-fungible token
Tim Berners-Lee defended his decision to auction as a non-fungible token (NFT) the source code of the World Wide Web (WWW), which follows the line of “the values of the Web”, which will remain free and open.
Today started the auction by Sotheby’s of a NFT pack that includes almost 10,000 lines of WWW code and the implementations of the three languages developed by Berners-Lee: HTML (HyperText Markup Language, the markup language for the elaboration of web pages), HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), and URI (Uniform Resource Identifier).
It also includes some documents that explain how to use the application, considered the first browser in history; an animation of the code as it is being written and a letter written by Berners-Lee in 2021 reflecting on the creation of the WWW.
The engineer clarifies that with the auction he is not selling the Web, that it will continue to be “free and free”, as always, since “the central codes and protocols of the web are free of rights.”
He also points out that with this auction he is not selling the source code, but rather “an image” that he made with a Python program that he wrote, “of what the source code would look like if it were posted on the wall and signed by me.”
NFT is a technology based on ‘blockchain’ that guarantees the authenticity of a file in digital format as a work of art, as well as who is its owner. Berners-Lee says he has always been interested in whether this technology could be used to fund creative people, such as artists or musicians.
K. Tovar
Source: The Guardian
