Cory Doctorow misses a teaching moment in his: What I wish Tim Berners-Lee understood about DRM.
Cory says:
Whenever Berners-Lee tells the story of the Web’s inception, he stresses that he was able to invent the Web without getting any permission. He uses this as a parable to explain the importance of an open and neutral Internet.
The “…without getting any permission” was a principle for Tim Berners-Lee when he was inventing the Web.
A principle then, not now.
Evidence? The fundamentals of RDF have been mired in the same model for fourteen (14) years. Impeding the evolution of the “Semantic” Web. Whatever its merits.
Another example? HTML5 violates prior definitions of URL in order to widen the reach of HTML5. (URL Homonym Problem: A Topic Map Solution)
Same “principle” as DRM support, expanding the label of “WWW” beyond what early supporters would recognize as the WWW.
HTML5 rewriting of URL and DRM support are membership building exercises.
The teaching moment comes from early Christian history.
You may (or may not) recall the parable of the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16-30), where a rich young man asks Jesus what he must do to be saved?
Jesus replies:
One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.
And for the first hundred or more years of Christianity, so far as can be known, that rule, divesting yourself of property was followed.
Until, Clement of Alexandria. Clement took the position that indeed the rich could retain their goods, so long as they used it charitably. (Now there’s a loophole!)
Created two paths to salvation, one for anyone foolish enough to take the Bible at its word and another for anyone would wanted to call themselves Christians, without any inconvenience or discomfort.
Following Clement of Alexandria, Tim Berners-Lee is creating two paths to the WWW.
One for people who are foolish enough to innovate and share information, the innovation model of the WWW that Cory speaks so highly of.
Another path for people (DRM crowd) who neither spin nor toil but who want to burden everyone who does.
Membership as a principle isn’t surprising considering how TBL sees himself in the mirror:
