Tim Bray: Difference between revisions
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{{short description|Canadian software developer}} |
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{{Infobox person |
{{Infobox person |
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| name = Tim Bray |
| name = Tim Bray |
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| image = Tim Bray.jpg |
| image = Tim Bray.jpg |
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|birth_name=Timothy William Bray |
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| birth_place = [[Fort Vermilion]], [[Alberta]], Canada |
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| employer = {{Plainlist| |
| employer = {{Plainlist| |
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* [[Digital Equipment Corporation]] |
* [[Digital Equipment Corporation]] |
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* [[University of Waterloo]] |
* [[University of Waterloo]] |
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* [[Waterloo Maple]] |
* [[Waterloo Maple]] |
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* [[Open Text Corporation]]<ref name="opentext">{{Cite journal | last1 = Bray | first1 = T. | title = Measuring the Web | doi = 10.1016/0169-7552(96)00061-X | journal = Computer Networks and ISDN Systems | volume = 28 | issue = 7–11 | pages = 993–1005 | year = 1996 |
* [[Open Text Corporation]]<ref name="opentext">{{Cite journal | last1 = Bray | first1 = T. | title = Measuring the Web | doi = 10.1016/0169-7552(96)00061-X | journal = Computer Networks and ISDN Systems | volume = 28 | issue = 7–11 | pages = 993–1005 | year = 1996 }}</ref> |
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* Antarctica Systems |
* Antarctica Systems |
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* [[World Wide Web Consortium|World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)]] |
* [[World Wide Web Consortium|World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)]] |
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* [[Sun Microsystems]]<ref name="sun">{{Cite book | last1 = Khare | first1 = R. | last2 = Barr | first2 = J. | last3 = Baker | first3 = M. | last4 = Bosworth | first4 = A. | last5 = Bray | first5 = T. | last6 = McManus | first6 = J. | chapter = Web services considered harmful? | doi = 10.1145/1062745.1062758 | title = Special interest tracks and posters of the 14th international conference on World Wide Web - WWW '05 | pages = 800 | year = 2005 | isbn = 978-1595930514 | |
* [[Sun Microsystems]]<ref name="sun">{{Cite book | last1 = Khare | first1 = R. | last2 = Barr | first2 = J. | last3 = Baker | first3 = M. | last4 = Bosworth | first4 = A. | last5 = Bray | first5 = T. | last6 = McManus | first6 = J. | chapter = Web services considered harmful? | doi = 10.1145/1062745.1062758 | title = Special interest tracks and posters of the 14th international conference on World Wide Web - WWW '05 | pages = 800 | year = 2005 | isbn = 978-1595930514 | s2cid = 13543260 }}</ref> |
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* [[Google]] |
* [[Google]] |
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* [[Centre for Digital Media]]<ref>[http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2014/05/13/Professor-of-Glass Teaching Glass], Ongoing, 2014-05-13</ref> |
* [[Centre for Digital Media]]<ref>[http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2014/05/13/Professor-of-Glass Teaching Glass], Ongoing, 2014-05-13</ref> |
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* [[Amazon.com]]}} |
* [[Amazon.com]]}} |
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| birth_place = |
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| occupation = |
| occupation = |
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| known_for = {{Plainlist| |
| known_for = {{Plainlist| |
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* [[Web standards]] |
* [[Web standards]] |
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* Co-author of [[XML]] specification<ref name="dblp"/><ref name="googlescholar"/><ref name="acm"/>}} |
* Co-author of [[XML]] specification<ref name="dblp"/><ref name="googlescholar"/><ref name="acm"/>}} |
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| education = [[University of Guelph]] ([[Bachelor of Science|BS]]) |
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| residence = [[Vancouver]], [[British Columbia]], Canada |
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| nationality = Canadian |
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| spouse = Lauren Wood |
| spouse = Lauren Wood |
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| website = {{URL|https://www.tbray.org/ongoing}} |
| website = {{URL|https://www.tbray.org/ongoing}} |
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}} |
}} |
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'''Timothy William Bray''' (born June 21, 1955) is a |
'''Timothy William Bray''' (born June 21, 1955) is a Canadian software developer, environmentalist, political activist and one of the co-authors of the original [[XML]] [[specification]].<ref>{{cite book|title=XBRL for Interactive Data |author=Roger Debreceny|isbn=9783642014376|date=2009-06-18|publisher=Springer }}</ref> He worked for [[Amazon Web Services]] from December 2014 until May 2020 when he quit due to concerns over the terminating of whistleblowers.<ref name="Bray">{{cite web|last=Bray|first=Tim|title=Amazonian|url=https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2014/12/01/Amazonian|work=Ongoing|access-date=January 2, 2015|date=December 1, 2014}}</ref><ref name="Bray2">{{cite web|last=Bray|first=Tim|title=Leaving Amazon|url=https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/04/29/Leaving-Amazon|work=Ongoing|access-date=May 3, 2020|date=April 29, 2020}}</ref> Previously he has been employed by [[Google]], [[Sun Microsystems]] and [[Digital Equipment Corporation|Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)]]. Bray has also founded or co-founded several start-ups such as Antarctica Systems.<ref>[http://www.infoq.com/interviews/tim_bray_rails_and_more Interview with Tim Bray] from Canada on Rails 2006, discussing [[Ruby (programming language)|Ruby]], [[Ruby on Rails|Rails]], [[REST]], [[XML]] and [[Java (software platform)|Java]]</ref><ref>[http://events.carsonified.com/fowa/2008/london/videos/tim-bray/ Tim Bray @ FOWA Expo 08 — The Fear Factor]{{dead link|date=March 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>[http://www.infoq.com/interviews/tim-bray-future-of-web Interview with Tim Bray] from QCon San Francisco 2008, discussing the future of the web</ref> |
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==Education and early life== |
==Education and early life== |
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Bray was born on June 21, 1955<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bray | first1=Tim | title=The New 40 |url=https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2015/06/24/The-new-40 |website=Ongoing | |
Bray was born on June 21, 1955<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bray | first1=Tim | title=The New 40 |url=https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2015/06/24/The-new-40 |website=Ongoing |access-date=15 September 2019}}</ref> in [[Alberta]], Canada where his father worked for the Dominion Experimental Farm Service in [[Fort Vermilion]]. He grew up in [[Beirut]], Lebanon, and returned to Canada to attend school at the [[University of Guelph]] in [[Guelph]], [[Ontario]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Weise |first1=Karen |title=The Amazon Critic Who Saw Its Power From the Inside |work=The New York Times |date=22 July 2020 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/technology/amazon-critic-tim-bray.html |access-date=4 March 2021}}</ref> He graduated in 1981 with a [[Bachelor of Science]], [[Double majors in the United States|double majoring]] in mathematics and computer Science. In 2009, he would return to Guelph to receive an honorary doctorate.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.uoguelph.ca/news/2009/06/eight_to_receiv.html|title=Eight to Receive Honorary Degrees|date=June 1, 2009}}</ref> Tim described his switch of focus from math to computer science this way: <blockquote>"In math I’d worked like a dog for my Cs, but in CS I worked much less for As—and learned that you got paid well for doing it."<ref name=apple>{{cite web|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040404093431/http://www.apple.com/science/profiles/bray/|archive-date=2004-04-04|url=https://www.apple.com/science/profiles/bray/|title=Tim Bray: Biomedical Visualization|author=Joe Cellini|publisher=Apple Inc.}}</ref></blockquote> |
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==Career== |
==Career== |
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Bray joined [[Digital Equipment Corporation]] (DEC) in [[Toronto]] as a software specialist. In 1983, Bray left DEC for Microtel Pacific Research. He joined the New [[Oxford English Dictionary|Oxford English Dictionary (OED)]] project at the [[University of Waterloo]] in 1987 as its manager.<ref name="oed">{{Cite journal | last1 = Blake | first1 = G. E. | last2 = Bray | first2 = T. | last3 = Tompa | first3 = F. W. | doi = 10.1145/146760.146764 | title = Shortening the OED: Experience with a grammar-defined database | journal = ACM Transactions on Information Systems | volume = 10 | issue = 3 | pages = 213 | year = 1992 | s2cid = 16859602 | doi-access = free }}</ref> It was during this time Bray worked with [[SGML]], a technology that would later become central to both [[Open Text Corporation]] and his XML and [[Atom (standard)|Atom standardization]] work.<ref name="dblp"/><ref name="acm"/> Bray co-founded [[#Antarctica Systems|Antarctica Systems]] - in 2002, during his tenure as CEO for Antarctica, Bray was included in [[Upside (magazine)|Upside magazine's]] ''elite 100'' list, alongside other IT leaders like [[Bill Gates]], [[Steve Jobs]], [[Michael Dell]] and [[Larry Ellison]].<ref> |
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{{cite web |
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|url= https://www.geospatialworld.net/news/antarcti-ca-ceo-tim-bray-joins-technologys-elite/ |
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|title= Antarcti.ca CEO Tim Bray joins technology's elite |
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|publisher= geospatialworld.net |
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|date = 23 January 2002 |
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|access-date=4 May 2020}} |
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</ref> Bray was director of Web Technologies at [[Sun Microsystems]] from early 2004 to early 2010.<ref name="sun"/> He joined [[Google]] as a developer advocate in 2010 focusing on [[Android (operating system)|Android]], and then on technologies related to ''identity'', such as [[OAuth]] and [[OpenID]]. <ref name="dblp">{{DBLP|name=Tim Bray}}</ref><ref name="googlescholar">[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?&q=tim+bray Tim Bray in Google Scholar]</ref><ref name="acm">{{ACMPortal|id=81100100902}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2010/03/15/Joining-Google |title=Now A No-Evil Zone |date=2010-03-15 |archive-date=2013-10-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131019083421/http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2012/06/29/Becoming-an-Identity-guy |author=Tim Bray |author-link=Tim Bray |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2012/06/29/Becoming-an-Identity-guy |title=Now On Identity |date=2012-06-29 |archive-date=2013-11-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131109040921/http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2010/03/15/Joining-Google |author=Tim Bray |author-link=Tim Bray |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|first=Tim|last=Bray|year=2013|title=Golang Diaries I|website=tbray.org|url=https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2013/06/16/Go-Love-Hate|quote=“a really good time to write about something is while you’re still discovering it, before you’re looking at it from the inside” —Tim Bray}}</ref> He left Google in March 2014, unwilling to relocate to [[Silicon Valley]] from [[Vancouver]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Bray|first=Tim|title=Leaving Google|url=https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2014/02/19/Leaving-Google|work=Ongoing|access-date=February 21, 2014|date=February 19, 2014}}</ref> He started working for [[Amazon Web Services]] (AWS) in December 2014. Bray left AWS in May 2020, after being dismayed by Amazon's treatment of [[Whistleblower|whistleblowers]] who had raised concerns over the safety of warehouse workers in relation to the [[COVID-19 pandemic]]. Bray had held the [[vice president]] rank, stating on his blog that "VPs shouldn't go publicly rogue", and had much praise for AWS, yet he wasn't pleased about his co-workers being fired.<ref> |
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{{cite web |
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|url= https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/04/tim_bray_quits_amazon/ |
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|title= 'VPs shouldn't go publicly rogue': XML co-author Tim Bray quits AWS over treatment of staff at Amazon's Retail division |
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|publisher= [[The Register]] |
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|date = 4 May 2020 |
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|access-date= 4 May 2020}} |
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</ref><ref> |
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{{cite web |
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|url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52534567?intlink_from_url=&link_location=live-reporting-story |
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|title= Coronavirus: Amazon vice-president quits over virus firings |
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|publisher= [[BBC]] |
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|date = 4 May 2020 |
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|access-date= 4 May 2020}} |
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</ref><ref name="Bray"/> |
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Bray's entrepreneurial activities include: |
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===Waterloo Maple=== |
===Waterloo Maple=== |
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Bray served as the part-time [[chief executive officer]] of [[Waterloo Maple]] during 1989–1990. Waterloo Maple is the developer of the [[Maple (software)|Maple]] mathematical software. |
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===Open Text Corporation=== |
===Open Text Corporation=== |
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Bray left the new OED project in 1989 to co-found [[Open Text Corporation]] with two colleagues. Open Text commercialised the search engine employed in the new OED project. |
Bray left the new OED project in 1989 to co-found [[Open Text Corporation]] with two colleagues. Open Text commercialised the search engine employed in the new OED project. |
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Bray recalled that “in 1994 I heard a conference speaker say that search engines would be big on the Internet, and in five seconds all the pieces just fell into place in my head. I realized that we could build such a thing with our technology.”<ref name=apple/> Thus in 1995, Open Text released the Open Text Index, one of the first popular commercial [[World Wide Web|web]] [[search engine]]s. Open Text Corporation is |
Bray recalled that “in 1994 I heard a conference speaker say that search engines would be big on the Internet, and in five seconds all the pieces just fell into place in my head. I realized that we could build such a thing with our technology.”<ref name=apple/> Thus in 1995, Open Text released the Open Text Index, one of the first popular commercial [[World Wide Web|web]] [[search engine]]s. Open Text Corporation is publicly traded on the Nasdaq under the symbol OTEX. From 1991 until 1996, Bray was senior vice president—technology'. |
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===Textuality=== |
===Textuality=== |
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Bray, along with his wife |
Bray, along with his wife Lauren Wood, ran Textuality,<ref name="textuality">[http://www.textuality.com Textuality]</ref> a consulting practice in the field of web and publishing technology. He was contracted by [[Netscape]] in 1999, along with [[Ramanathan V. Guha]],<ref name="googlescholar"/> in part to create a new version of the [[Meta Content Framework]] called [[Resource Description Framework]], which used the XML language. |
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===Antarctica Systems=== |
===Antarctica Systems=== |
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==Web standards== |
==Web standards== |
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Bray has contributed to |
Bray has contributed to standards in technology, particularly [[Web standards]] at the [[World Wide Web Consortium]] (W3C). |
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===XML=== |
===XML=== |
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As an Invited Expert at the [[World Wide Web Consortium]] between 1996 and 1999, Bray co-edited the [[XML]] and [[XML namespace]] specifications. Halfway through the project Bray accepted a consulting engagement with [[Netscape]], provoking vociferous protests from Netscape competitor [[Microsoft]] (who had supported the initial moves to bring [[SGML]] to the web.) Bray was temporarily asked to resign the editorship. This led to intense dispute in the Working Group, eventually solved by the appointment of Microsoft's [[Jean Paoli]] as third co-editor. |
As an Invited Expert at the [[World Wide Web Consortium]] between 1996 and 1999, Bray co-edited the [[XML]] and [[XML namespace]] specifications. Halfway through the project Bray accepted a consulting engagement with [[Netscape]], provoking vociferous protests from Netscape competitor [[Microsoft]] (who had supported the initial moves to bring [[SGML]] to the web.){{fact|date=May 2020}} Bray was temporarily asked to resign the editorship. This led to intense dispute in the Working Group, eventually solved by the appointment of Microsoft's [[Jean Paoli]] as third co-editor. |
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In 2001, Bray wrote an article called ''Taxi to the Future'' <ref>{{cite web|title=TAXI to the Future|url=http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2001/03/14/taxi.html| |
In 2001, Bray wrote an article called ''Taxi to the Future'' <ref>{{cite web|title=TAXI to the Future|url=http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2001/03/14/taxi.html|access-date=2012-07-08}}</ref> for Xml.com which proposed a means to improve web client user experience and web server system performance via a ''Transform-Aggregate-send XML-Interact'' architecture—this proposed system is very similar to the [[Ajax (programming)|Ajax]] paradigm, popularized around 2005.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2006/02/14/AJAX-Performance|title=ongoing · The Real AJAX Upside|author=Tim Bray|website=Ongoing|access-date=2008-10-26}}</ref> |
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===W3C TAG=== |
===W3C TAG=== |
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Between 2001 and 2004<ref>{{cite web|title=W3C TAG History, thru 2004 WebArch Recommendation|url=http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/tag-2004|publisher=W3C}}</ref> he served as a [[Tim Berners-Lee]] appointee<ref>{{cite web|title=TAG - representation "from the larger Web community"?|url=http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2001Dec/0006.html|author=Dan Connolly|publisher=W3C}}</ref> to the [[W3C]] Technical Architecture Group.<ref>{{cite web|title=How does XML measure up?|url=http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39116628-1,00.htm|author=David Becker|publisher=[[CNET Networks]]| |
Between 2001 and 2004<ref>{{cite web|title=W3C TAG History, thru 2004 WebArch Recommendation|url=http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/tag-2004|publisher=W3C}}</ref> he served as a [[Tim Berners-Lee]] appointee<ref>{{cite web|title=TAG - representation "from the larger Web community"?|url=http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2001Dec/0006.html|author=Dan Connolly|publisher=W3C}}</ref> to the [[W3C]] [[Technical Architecture Group]].<ref>{{cite web|title=How does XML measure up?|url=http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39116628-1,00.htm|author=David Becker|publisher=[[CNET Networks]]|access-date=2008-10-26}}</ref> |
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===Atom=== |
===Atom=== |
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Until October 2007, Bray was co- |
Until October 2007, Bray was co-chair, with Paul Hoffman, of the [[Atom (standard)|Atom]]-focused Atompub Working Group of the [[Internet Engineering Task Force]]. Atom is a web syndication format developed to address perceived deficiencies with the [[RSS (file format)|RSS 2.0 format]]. |
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===JSON=== |
===JSON=== |
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Bray worked with the IETF JSON Working Group in 2013 and 2014, serving as editor of RFC 7159, a specification of the JSON Data Interchange Format which revised RFC 4627 and highlighted interoperability best practices, released in March 2014.<ref>{{cite |
Bray worked with the IETF JSON Working Group in 2013 and 2014, serving as editor of RFC 7159, a specification of the JSON Data Interchange Format which revised RFC 4627 and highlighted interoperability best practices, released in March 2014.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bray |first1=T. |year=2014 |title=RFC 7159: The JSON Data Interchange Format |url=http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7159 |journal=Internet Engineering Task Force |doi=10.17487/RFC7159 |doi-access=free |editor-last1=Bray |editor-first1=T.}}</ref> He also edited RFC 8259, a further revision of JSON.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bray |first1=T. |year=2017 |title=RFC 8259: The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Data Interchange Format |url=https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8259 |journal=Internet Engineering Task Force |doi=10.17487/RFC8259 |s2cid=263868313 |editor-last1=Bray |editor-first1=T.}}</ref> |
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==Software== |
==Software== |
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Bray has written |
Bray has written software applications, including Bonnie which was the inspiration for [[Bonnie++]], a [[Unix]] [[file system]] [[benchmarking]] tool; Lark, the first [[XML]] [[Parser|processor]];<ref>[http://www.textuality.com/Lark/ Lark]—the first XML processor</ref> and APE, the Atom Protocol Exerciser.<ref name="software">[http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/misc/Software ongoing — Software]—Summary Page on Tim Bray's [[weblog]]</ref> |
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==Environmentalism== |
==Environmentalism== |
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Starting in 2018, Bray became visible as an environmentalist in the context of the [[Trans Mountain Pipeline]] dispute. On April 18, 2018, he was arrested for contempt of court at a demonstration at the Trans Mountain site in Burnaby, Canada.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Cruickshank |first1=Ainslie |title=More protesters make court appearances as Kinder Morgan pipeline protests go global |url=https://www.thestar.com/vancouver/2018/04/18/more-protesters-make-court-appearances-as-kinder-morgan-pipeline-protests-go-global.html |website=The Star |date=18 April 2018 |access-date=30 October 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Lambert |first1=Sheena |title='Welcome to the wild side, Mum' — A day with the Kinder Morgan pipeline opponents |url=https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/03/19/opinion/welcome-wild-side-mum-day-kinder-morgan-pipeline-opponents |website=National Observer |date=19 March 2018 |access-date=30 October 2019}}</ref> He also participated in an open letter from business leaders to the British Columbia government<ref>{{cite web |last1=Gibillini |first1=Nicole |title=Hundreds of business leaders urge B.C.'s Horgan to keep up Trans Mountain fight |url=https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/hundreds-of-business-leaders-urge-b-c-s-horgan-to-keep-up-trans-mountain-fight-1.1061836 |website=BNN Bloomberg |date=19 April 2018 |access-date=30 October 2019}}</ref> and was subsequently a public voice against the project.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Erlichman |first1=Jon |title=Trans Mountain nationalization a 'grave mistake': Open Text co-founder |url=https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/video/trans-mountain-nationalization-a-grave-mistake-open-text-co-founder~1406874 |website=BNN Bloomberg |date=31 May 2018 |access-date=30 October 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Erlichmann |first1=Jon |title=OpenText co-founder Tim Bray throws support behind B.C. Premier Horgan on Trans Mountain |url=https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/video/opentext-co-founder-tim-bray-throws-support-behind-b-c-premier-horgan-on-trans-mountain~1375831 |website=BNN Bloomberg |date=20 April 2018 |access-date=30 October 2019}}</ref> |
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In 2019, Bray was the only VP-level Amazon employee to sign a letter to Amazon shareholders calling for a stop to Amazon Web Services' support for oil extraction.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Merchant |first1=Brian |title=6,000 Amazon Employees, Including a VP and Directors, Are Now Calling on Jeff Bezos to Stop Automating Oil Extraction |url=https://gizmodo.com/6-000-amazon-employees-including-a-vp-and-directors-n-1834001079 |website=Gizmodo}}</ref> |
In 2019, Bray was the only VP-level Amazon employee to sign a letter to Amazon shareholders calling for a stop to Amazon Web Services' support for oil extraction.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Merchant |first1=Brian |title=6,000 Amazon Employees, Including a VP and Directors, Are Now Calling on Jeff Bezos to Stop Automating Oil Extraction |url=https://gizmodo.com/6-000-amazon-employees-including-a-vp-and-directors-n-1834001079 |website=Gizmodo|date=12 April 2019 }}</ref> |
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==See also== |
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* [[List of University of Waterloo people]] |
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==References== |
==References== |
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{{Reflist |
{{Reflist}} |
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{{OpenText}} |
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{{Authority control}} |
{{Authority control}} |
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bray, Tim}} |
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bray, Tim}} |
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[[Category:1955 births]] |
[[Category:1955 births]] |
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[[Category:OpenText]] |
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[[Category:Businesspeople in computing]] |
[[Category:Businesspeople in computing]] |
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[[Category:Canadian bloggers]] |
[[Category:Canadian male bloggers]] |
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[[Category:Amazon (company) people]] |
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[[Category:Canadian computer scientists]] |
[[Category:Canadian computer scientists]] |
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[[Category:Google employees]] |
[[Category:Google employees]] |
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[[Category:Living people]] |
[[Category:Living people]] |
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[[Category: |
[[Category:Businesspeople from Beirut]] |
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[[Category:Sun Microsystems people]] |
[[Category:Sun Microsystems people]] |
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[[Category:University of Guelph alumni]] |
[[Category:University of Guelph alumni]] |
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[[Category:Unix people]] |
[[Category:Unix people]] |
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[[Category:Writers from |
[[Category:Writers from Alberta]] |
Latest revision as of 01:53, 25 November 2024
Tim Bray | |
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Born | Fort Vermilion, Alberta, Canada | June 21, 1955
Education | University of Guelph (BS) |
Employers | |
Known for |
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Spouse | Lauren Wood |
Website | www |
Timothy William Bray (born June 21, 1955) is a Canadian software developer, environmentalist, political activist and one of the co-authors of the original XML specification.[7] He worked for Amazon Web Services from December 2014 until May 2020 when he quit due to concerns over the terminating of whistleblowers.[8][9] Previously he has been employed by Google, Sun Microsystems and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Bray has also founded or co-founded several start-ups such as Antarctica Systems.[10][11][12]
Education and early life
[edit]Bray was born on June 21, 1955[13] in Alberta, Canada where his father worked for the Dominion Experimental Farm Service in Fort Vermilion. He grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, and returned to Canada to attend school at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario.[14] He graduated in 1981 with a Bachelor of Science, double majoring in mathematics and computer Science. In 2009, he would return to Guelph to receive an honorary doctorate.[15] Tim described his switch of focus from math to computer science this way:
"In math I’d worked like a dog for my Cs, but in CS I worked much less for As—and learned that you got paid well for doing it."[16]
Career
[edit]Bray joined Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in Toronto as a software specialist. In 1983, Bray left DEC for Microtel Pacific Research. He joined the New Oxford English Dictionary (OED) project at the University of Waterloo in 1987 as its manager.[17] It was during this time Bray worked with SGML, a technology that would later become central to both Open Text Corporation and his XML and Atom standardization work.[4][6] Bray co-founded Antarctica Systems - in 2002, during his tenure as CEO for Antarctica, Bray was included in Upside magazine's elite 100 list, alongside other IT leaders like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell and Larry Ellison.[18] Bray was director of Web Technologies at Sun Microsystems from early 2004 to early 2010.[2] He joined Google as a developer advocate in 2010 focusing on Android, and then on technologies related to identity, such as OAuth and OpenID. [4][5][6][19][20][21] He left Google in March 2014, unwilling to relocate to Silicon Valley from Vancouver.[22] He started working for Amazon Web Services (AWS) in December 2014. Bray left AWS in May 2020, after being dismayed by Amazon's treatment of whistleblowers who had raised concerns over the safety of warehouse workers in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Bray had held the vice president rank, stating on his blog that "VPs shouldn't go publicly rogue", and had much praise for AWS, yet he wasn't pleased about his co-workers being fired.[23][24][8]
Bray's entrepreneurial activities include:
Waterloo Maple
[edit]Bray served as the part-time chief executive officer of Waterloo Maple during 1989–1990. Waterloo Maple is the developer of the Maple mathematical software.
Open Text Corporation
[edit]Bray left the new OED project in 1989 to co-found Open Text Corporation with two colleagues. Open Text commercialised the search engine employed in the new OED project.
Bray recalled that “in 1994 I heard a conference speaker say that search engines would be big on the Internet, and in five seconds all the pieces just fell into place in my head. I realized that we could build such a thing with our technology.”[16] Thus in 1995, Open Text released the Open Text Index, one of the first popular commercial web search engines. Open Text Corporation is publicly traded on the Nasdaq under the symbol OTEX. From 1991 until 1996, Bray was senior vice president—technology'.
Textuality
[edit]Bray, along with his wife Lauren Wood, ran Textuality,[25] a consulting practice in the field of web and publishing technology. He was contracted by Netscape in 1999, along with Ramanathan V. Guha,[5] in part to create a new version of the Meta Content Framework called Resource Description Framework, which used the XML language.
Antarctica Systems
[edit]In 1999 he founded Antarctica Systems, a Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada-based company that specializes in visualization-based business analytics.
Web standards
[edit]Bray has contributed to standards in technology, particularly Web standards at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
XML
[edit]As an Invited Expert at the World Wide Web Consortium between 1996 and 1999, Bray co-edited the XML and XML namespace specifications. Halfway through the project Bray accepted a consulting engagement with Netscape, provoking vociferous protests from Netscape competitor Microsoft (who had supported the initial moves to bring SGML to the web.)[citation needed] Bray was temporarily asked to resign the editorship. This led to intense dispute in the Working Group, eventually solved by the appointment of Microsoft's Jean Paoli as third co-editor.
In 2001, Bray wrote an article called Taxi to the Future [26] for Xml.com which proposed a means to improve web client user experience and web server system performance via a Transform-Aggregate-send XML-Interact architecture—this proposed system is very similar to the Ajax paradigm, popularized around 2005.[27]
W3C TAG
[edit]Between 2001 and 2004[28] he served as a Tim Berners-Lee appointee[29] to the W3C Technical Architecture Group.[30]
Atom
[edit]Until October 2007, Bray was co-chair, with Paul Hoffman, of the Atom-focused Atompub Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task Force. Atom is a web syndication format developed to address perceived deficiencies with the RSS 2.0 format.
JSON
[edit]Bray worked with the IETF JSON Working Group in 2013 and 2014, serving as editor of RFC 7159, a specification of the JSON Data Interchange Format which revised RFC 4627 and highlighted interoperability best practices, released in March 2014.[31] He also edited RFC 8259, a further revision of JSON.[32]
Software
[edit]Bray has written software applications, including Bonnie which was the inspiration for Bonnie++, a Unix file system benchmarking tool; Lark, the first XML processor;[33] and APE, the Atom Protocol Exerciser.[34]
Environmentalism
[edit]Starting in 2018, Bray became visible as an environmentalist in the context of the Trans Mountain Pipeline dispute. On April 18, 2018, he was arrested for contempt of court at a demonstration at the Trans Mountain site in Burnaby, Canada.[35][36] He also participated in an open letter from business leaders to the British Columbia government[37] and was subsequently a public voice against the project.[38][39] In 2019, Bray was the only VP-level Amazon employee to sign a letter to Amazon shareholders calling for a stop to Amazon Web Services' support for oil extraction.[40]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Bray, T. (1996). "Measuring the Web". Computer Networks and ISDN Systems. 28 (7–11): 993–1005. doi:10.1016/0169-7552(96)00061-X.
- ^ a b Khare, R.; Barr, J.; Baker, M.; Bosworth, A.; Bray, T.; McManus, J. (2005). "Web services considered harmful?". Special interest tracks and posters of the 14th international conference on World Wide Web - WWW '05. p. 800. doi:10.1145/1062745.1062758. ISBN 978-1595930514. S2CID 13543260.
- ^ Teaching Glass, Ongoing, 2014-05-13
- ^ a b c Tim Bray at DBLP Bibliography Server
- ^ a b c Tim Bray in Google Scholar
- ^ a b c Tim Bray author profile page at the ACM Digital Library
- ^ Roger Debreceny (2009-06-18). XBRL for Interactive Data. Springer. ISBN 9783642014376.
- ^ a b Bray, Tim (December 1, 2014). "Amazonian". Ongoing. Retrieved January 2, 2015.
- ^ Bray, Tim (April 29, 2020). "Leaving Amazon". Ongoing. Retrieved May 3, 2020.
- ^ Interview with Tim Bray from Canada on Rails 2006, discussing Ruby, Rails, REST, XML and Java
- ^ Tim Bray @ FOWA Expo 08 — The Fear Factor[permanent dead link ]
- ^ Interview with Tim Bray from QCon San Francisco 2008, discussing the future of the web
- ^ Bray, Tim. "The New 40". Ongoing. Retrieved 15 September 2019.
- ^ Weise, Karen (22 July 2020). "The Amazon Critic Who Saw Its Power From the Inside". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 March 2021.
- ^ "Eight to Receive Honorary Degrees". June 1, 2009.
- ^ a b Joe Cellini. "Tim Bray: Biomedical Visualization". Apple Inc. Archived from the original on 2004-04-04.
- ^ Blake, G. E.; Bray, T.; Tompa, F. W. (1992). "Shortening the OED: Experience with a grammar-defined database". ACM Transactions on Information Systems. 10 (3): 213. doi:10.1145/146760.146764. S2CID 16859602.
- ^ "Antarcti.ca CEO Tim Bray joins technology's elite". geospatialworld.net. 23 January 2002. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
- ^ Tim Bray (2010-03-15). "Now A No-Evil Zone". Archived from the original on 2013-10-19.
- ^ Tim Bray (2012-06-29). "Now On Identity". Archived from the original on 2013-11-09.
- ^ Bray, Tim (2013). "Golang Diaries I". tbray.org.
"a really good time to write about something is while you're still discovering it, before you're looking at it from the inside" —Tim Bray
- ^ Bray, Tim (February 19, 2014). "Leaving Google". Ongoing. Retrieved February 21, 2014.
- ^ "'VPs shouldn't go publicly rogue': XML co-author Tim Bray quits AWS over treatment of staff at Amazon's Retail division". The Register. 4 May 2020. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
- ^ "Coronavirus: Amazon vice-president quits over virus firings". BBC. 4 May 2020. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
- ^ Textuality
- ^ "TAXI to the Future". Retrieved 2012-07-08.
- ^ Tim Bray. "ongoing · The Real AJAX Upside". Ongoing. Retrieved 2008-10-26.
- ^ "W3C TAG History, thru 2004 WebArch Recommendation". W3C.
- ^ Dan Connolly. "TAG - representation "from the larger Web community"?". W3C.
- ^ David Becker. "How does XML measure up?". CNET Networks. Retrieved 2008-10-26.
- ^ Bray, T. (2014). Bray, T. (ed.). "RFC 7159: The JSON Data Interchange Format". Internet Engineering Task Force. doi:10.17487/RFC7159.
- ^ Bray, T. (2017). Bray, T. (ed.). "RFC 8259: The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Data Interchange Format". Internet Engineering Task Force. doi:10.17487/RFC8259. S2CID 263868313.
- ^ Lark—the first XML processor
- ^ ongoing — Software—Summary Page on Tim Bray's weblog
- ^ Cruickshank, Ainslie (18 April 2018). "More protesters make court appearances as Kinder Morgan pipeline protests go global". The Star. Retrieved 30 October 2019.
- ^ Lambert, Sheena (19 March 2018). "'Welcome to the wild side, Mum' — A day with the Kinder Morgan pipeline opponents". National Observer. Retrieved 30 October 2019.
- ^ Gibillini, Nicole (19 April 2018). "Hundreds of business leaders urge B.C.'s Horgan to keep up Trans Mountain fight". BNN Bloomberg. Retrieved 30 October 2019.
- ^ Erlichman, Jon (31 May 2018). "Trans Mountain nationalization a 'grave mistake': Open Text co-founder". BNN Bloomberg. Retrieved 30 October 2019.
- ^ Erlichmann, Jon (20 April 2018). "OpenText co-founder Tim Bray throws support behind B.C. Premier Horgan on Trans Mountain". BNN Bloomberg. Retrieved 30 October 2019.
- ^ Merchant, Brian (12 April 2019). "6,000 Amazon Employees, Including a VP and Directors, Are Now Calling on Jeff Bezos to Stop Automating Oil Extraction". Gizmodo.