Editor’s pick: Tim Berners-Lee

1. "I found myself answering the same questions asked frequently of me by different people. It would be so much easier if everyone could just read my database."

2. "I would have to create a system with common rules that would be acceptable to everyone. That meant as close as possible to no rules at all."

3. "E-mail allowed messages to be sent from one person to another, but did not form a space in which information could permanently exists and be referred to."

4. "I had argued that it was ridiculous for a person to have two separate interfaces, one for local information (the desktop of their own computer) and one for remote information (a browser to reach other computers). Why did we need an entire desktop for our own computer but get only a window through which to view the entire rest of the planet? Why, for that matter, should we have folders on our desktop but not on the web?"

5. "Most of systems still depended on some central node to which everything had to be connected [...]. I wanted the act of adding a link to be trivial. If I was, then a web of links could spread evenly across the globe."