The New York Times > Technology > Pioneer Who Kept the Web Free Honored With a Technology Prize

The New York Times > Technology > Pioneer Who Kept the Web Free Honored With a Technology Prize: "If Tim Berners-Lee had decided to patent his idea in 1989, the Internet would be a different place.
Instead, the World Wide Web became free to anyone who could make use of it. Many of the entrepreneurs and scientists who did use it became rich, among them Jeffrey P. Bezos ( Amazon.com), Jerry Yang ( Yahoo), Pierre Omidyar ( eBay) and Marc Andreessen (Netscape).
But not Mr. Berners-Lee, a British scientist working at a Geneva research laboratory at the time. That is why some people think it is fitting - or about time - that on Tuesday, Mr. Berners-Lee will finally be recognized, with the award of the world's largest technology prize, the Millennium Technology Prize from the Finnish Technology Award Foundation. The prize, valued at 1 million euros ($1.2 million) is supported by the Finnish government and private contributors."