CERN releases Web software into the public domain

Even after Mosaic's success, CERN technically still held the underlying rights to the core Web software, and outside organizations building their own servers or browsers faced uncertainty about what licensing terms might eventually apply. CERN's directors placed the World Wide Web software, its source code, into the public domain, removing any royalty or licensing barrier to implementing it. That decision meant any company, university or individual could build Web servers and browsers without negotiating rights with CERN, a precondition that let the rapid browser and server competition of the mid-1990s happen without a single gatekeeper controlling who could build for the Web.