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On 30 April 1993 CERN put the World Wide Web software in the public domain, meaning anyone could use, copy or change it without paying or asking permission. That decision helped the web grow from a tool for physicists into something the whole world uses.

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The timing mattered. Earlier that year the University of Minnesota had announced licence fees for its Gopher software, a rival system for finding documents online, and many developers turned to the web instead. Early in 1993 the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in Illinois released Mosaic, an easy-to-use browser that showed pictures alongside text, and versions for ordinary PCs and Macs soon followed. By late 1993 there were more than 500 known web servers, carrying about 1% of internet traffic. By the end of 1994 there were 10,000 servers and some 10 million users. That year Berners-Lee left CERN to found the World Wide Web Consortium, which works to keep the web's standards open and free for everyone to use.

Türkçe oku
CERN, 30 Nisan 1993'te World Wide Web yazılımını kamu malı ilan etti: Artık herkes onu para ödemeden ve kimseden izin almadan kullanabilir, çoğaltabilir, değiştirebilirdi. Bu karar sayesinde web, fizikçilerin kullandığı bir araç olmaktan çıkıp bütün dünyaya yayıldı.

Zamanlama da önemliydi. Aynı yılın başında Minnesota Üniversitesi, internette belge bulmaya yarayan rakip sistem Gopher'ın yazılımı için lisans ücreti alacağını açıklamıştı; pek çok geliştirici bunun üzerine web'e yöneldi. Yine 1993'ün başında ABD'nin Illinois eyaletindeki Ulusal Süperbilgisayar Uygulamaları Merkezi (NCSA), resimleri metinle birlikte gösteren, kullanımı kolay Mosaic tarayıcısını yayımladı; kısa süre sonra sıradan PC ve Mac bilgisayarlar için de sürümleri çıktı. 1993'ün sonunda bilinen web sunucusu sayısı 500'ü aşmıştı ve bunlar internet trafiğinin yaklaşık %1'ini taşıyordu. 1994'ün sonunda sunucu sayısı 10.000'e, kullanıcı sayısı 10 milyona ulaştı. Aynı yıl Berners-Lee CERN'den ayrıldı ve web standartlarının herkese açık ve ücretsiz kalması için çalışan World Wide Web Consortium'u (W3C) kurdu.

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