On May 25, 1994 at CERN in Geneva it opened the first world conference of the world wide web. Over three hundred scientists from all over the world gathered at CERN to talk for three days about this strange thing that was about to change the Internet, to make it what it is today. In the small circle of enthusiasts, the thing had such an uproar that it was renamed the “Woodstock of the www”. Yet there is no photo of that event. What happened? A few days earlier the Guardian he had published an article in which he called the web “the road to knowledge”. Yet at the time, always said the Guardian, there were 35 million network users worldwide but they were growing by 20 percent every month, and at that rate they would have been 200 million by the end of 1995.
Something had happened, and that something was the birth of the world wide web, or that system of protocols that allowed the network to be populated. Behind were two CERN researchers: Tim Berners Lee, English, now very famous, who has the main merit of intuition; is Robert Caillau, a Belgian computer scientist. At the 1994 event, the host was Caillau. We know why the web page of thanks bears his signature. The program included three days of discussions streamed on a platform that used obviously rudimentary technology (MBONE), but the web page with the speakers has been lost. And then an award ceremony, i “www Awards”, assigned to those who had contributed to the spread of the web. Those names are also lost.
But instead it stays the page with the participants, over three hundred as I said, several Italians. I’m reporting their names because maybe some of them come forward and tell us what really happened in those three days in Geneva to call them the Woodstock of the web. Here they are: Andrea Balestra (Trieste Astronomical Observatory); Andrea Baruffolo (Padua astronomical observatory); Leopoldo Benacchio (Padua astronomical observatory); Edoardo Bovio (Saclant underwater research center); Alessio Bragadini (University of Pisa); Barbara Searches (world meteorology organization); Stefano Cerreti (CNR Florence); Andrea Dell’Amico (University of Pisa); Luca Fini (Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory); Joachim the Old (University of Pisa); Stefano Lariccia (University of Rome); Giampiero Marcenaro (University of Genoa); Roberto Mazzoni (computer center Zurich, registered as Swiss); Roberta Morelli (Caspur); Francesco Navarria (INFN Bologna); Pier Giovanni Pelfer (university of Florence); Alberto Pozzoli (Crossover); Francesco Saguato (Cancer Research Institute); Francesco Spina (Saclant underwater research center).
There are nineteen: nineteen Italian scientists who have seen the dawn of the web. How it was? And why did it take us so long to realize that everything was about to change?
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