The early R.F.C.\u2019s ranged from grand visions to mundane details, although the latter quickly became the most common. Less important than the content of those first documents was that they were available free of charge and anyone could write one. Instead of authority-based decision-making, we relied on a process we called \u201crough consensus and running code.\u201d\u009d Everyone was welcome to propose ideas, and if enough people liked it and used it, the design became a standard.<\/p>\n
After all, everyone understood there was a practical value in choosing to do the same task in the same way. For example, if we wanted to move a file from one machine to another, and if you were to design the process one way, and I was to design it another, then anyone who wanted to talk to both of us would have to employ two distinct ways of doing the same thing. So there was plenty of natural pressure to avoid such hassles. It probably helped that in those days we avoided patents and other restrictions; without any financial incentive to control the protocols, it was much easier to reach agreement.<\/p>\n
This was the ultimate in openness in technical design and that culture of open processes was essential in enabling the Internet to grow and evolve as spectacularly as it has. In fact, we probably wouldn\u2019t have the Web without it. When CERN physicists wanted to publish a lot of information in a way that people could easily get to it and add to it, they simply built and tested their ideas. Because of the groundwork we\u2019d laid in the R.F.C.\u2019s, they did not have to ask permission, or make any changes to the core operations of the Internet. Others soon copied them \u201d\u201d hundreds of thousands of computer users, then hundreds of millions, creating and sharing content and technology. That\u2019s the Web.<\/p>\n