Funny how Sir Tim Berners-Lee, famous for hyperlinks, is into NFTs, glorified hyperlinks
- Reference: 1623824832
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/06/16/world_wide_web_nft_tim_berners_lee_auction/
- Source link:
Yup, another [1]NFT . These are tokens that are embedded in a blockchain, and can be sold for millions and exchanged between traders. Buyers really aren't getting much. Typically, the data they paid for isn't actually stored in a blockchain, they just get a token, and the tokens include a link to the material they represent that anyone can see and access. It's a receipt stored in an append-only database. You're essentially bagging bragging rights for stuff that's public.
And in the case of Sir Tim's code, it's definitely public: you can find at least his earliest WWW browser code [2]here for free, web server code [3]here for free, and the first website he crafted at CERN recreated [4]here for free.
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Like all fads, the value of NFTs has gone up and down. They hit a peak in March when digital artist Beeple sold what is, essentially, a link to a giant JPEG as an NFT for [6]$69m in cryptocurrency ... albeit to an NFT fund manager. The craze appears to have died down, however. No NFT has managed to fetch that much since.
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Still, Sir Tim is willing to give it a punt. He’s hawking a link to the code he wrote on an NeXT computer that turned into the backbone of the web as we know it today (see the links above). The source was written between October 3, 1990 and August 24, 1991 in Objective C, and it totals some 9,000 lines of code. It contains his implementations of HTML, HTTP, URIs, and more, which laid the foundations of today's web. And, snark aside, as an internet publication, we do appreciate that contribution to the world.
But that’s not all. The buyer will also have bragging rights to a black-and-white video
what, [9]this one , for free? – ed.
streaming the code line by line – which, we note, contains numerous typos due to encoding angle brackets in the ObjC code as HTML – and a snapshot of the whole codebase as an SVG, and, finally, a README note written by Sir Tim.[10]
Sotheby’s will [11]host the auction , bids are open now, and start from $1,000. The auction will close on June 30.
“Sir Tim has been thinking about the web over the last 30 years, the good and the bad,” Mitzi Mina, director of Sotheby's press office in London told The Register . “This provides a way of celebrating creation but being reflective about the web past, present and future. Sir Tim sees this as similar to selling an autograph copy of a book.”
[12]Tim Berners-Lee asks everyone to do new biz a Solid and let him have another crack at fixing the Web's privacy
[13]World Wide Web's Sir Tim swells his let's-remake-the-internet startup with Bruce Schneier, fellow tech experts
[14]The internet is going to hell and its creators want your help fixing it
[15]Berners-Lee takes flak for 'hippie manifesto' that only Google and Facebook could love
Sir Tim appears to be a fan of NFTs and blockchain technology overall. He praised them as a way of “avoiding central control,” [16]according to the Financial Times. The money from the source-code-link sale will go toward “initiatives that Sir Tim and Lady Rosemary Leith Berners-Lee support”, we’re told. So, it's basically a charity auction.
"Three decades ago, I created something which, with the subsequent help of a huge number of collaborators across the world, has been a powerful tool for humanity," he said in a statement to the press.
"For me, the best bit about the web has been the spirit of collaboration. While I do not make predictions about the future, I sincerely hope its use, knowledge and potential will remain open and available to us all to continue to innovate, create and initiate the next technological transformation, that we cannot yet imagine.
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"NFTs, be they artworks or a digital artefact like this, are the latest playful creations in this realm, and the most appropriate means of ownership that exists. They are the ideal way to package the origins behind the web.” ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/04/what_is_nft/
[2] https://github.com/cynthia/WorldWideWeb/tree/master/NextStep/Implementation
[3] https://www.w3.org/Daemon/
[4] http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YMnLvwlReGmst0fPbW1OcwAAAEA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/12/beeple_nft_sold/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YMnLvwlReGmst0fPbW1OcwAAAEA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YMnLvwlReGmst0fPbW1OcwAAAEA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2021/this-changed-everything-source-code-for-www-x-tim-berners-lee-an-nft/source-code-for-the-www
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YMnLvwlReGmst0fPbW1OcwAAAEA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2021/this-changed-everything-source-code-for-www-x-tim-berners-lee-an-nft/source-code-for-the-www
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/10/inrupt_server_tim_berners_lee/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2020/02/24/solid_nrupt_plans/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2018/12/11/tinternet_needs_work/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2018/11/09/berners_lee_criticism/
[16] https://www.ft.com/content/a77ad1bf-fae0-478b-aa05-a07790314ebc
[17] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YMnLvwlReGmst0fPbW1OcwAAAEA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Nothing Fecking There
Yep. NFT's prove ownership but only in the context of the particular blockchain backed NFT system used to register them. Nothing stops you or anyone else from creating other "ownerships" of the same asset in other NFT schemes.
Re: Nothing Fecking There
Or, for that matter, even accepting the exclusive linkage to the block chain scheme it claims to be registered in. The link is not the code!
Lets be realistic here, that $69 million mentioned in the story, is a fake valuation of an otherwise worthless asset used to pretend that the crypto it was turned into was somehow backed by assets worth $69 million. When that crypto coin collapses, how much do you think the liquidator will be able to get for a JPEG in a real tradable currency?
Nothing.
So how much will the buyers left holding said crypto coin be able to recover from their 'asset'..... nothing.
But they're supposed to believe there is something there, beyond the balance of money put in by the marks and taken out by the scammers!
Also who's the buyer there and whose the selling? Did the "digital artist" *sell* their digital artwork for fake money, or did the digital artist *buy* the fake currency they were supposedly paid in by paying with their art?
Or was it the third option: a mock auction fraud? Where buyer and sellers are the same group pretending to be trading something of value in order to lure in real buyers and real assets with real money.
Re: Nothing Fecking There
It's like the 'name a star' con-outfits.
Yes you've paid money to a random company who keeps a ledger (I can imagine they even skip that) of folk they've conned, in return providing said folk a certificate 'proving' their star now has the requested name.
Re: "He praised them as a way of “avoiding central control,”"
I'm still struggling with this one.
Re: "He praised them as a way of “avoiding central control,”"
"Avoiding central control" here means "giving me lots of money".
Because f*** the planet, apparently.
Re: "He praised them as a way of “avoiding central control,”"
A few outlets are reporting that the money is going to charity.
Actually ....
... the quote from Sotherby's (used in the subheadline) about the similarity with autographing a book is the first time that NFTs have made even the slightest bit of sense to me.
Obviously they have many other problems (such as wasting energy) but the analogy partially works (for me at least): "I know you also have an identical copy of the book but mine is special (a.k.a. more valuable) because someone signed their name on it"
This does suggest that the "value" is likewise going to be highly subjective in the same way as you might not care about this author signing a book but you might care about that one doing it.
I wonder if the analogy will extend to, what I understand is quite a big problem in the "autographed goods" market, of fakes?
Re: Actually ....
Book signings for the Covid generation.
No need for all that messy personal contact
Nothing Fecking There
NFT.