Editing Tim Bray

{{short description|Canadian software developer}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Tim Bray
| image              = Tim-at-protect-the-inlet (cropped).jpg
| caption            = Tim Bray in 2018
| birth_date         = {{Birth date and age|1955|06|21}}
| birth_place        = [[Alberta]], Canada
| employer           = {{Plainlist|
* [[Digital Equipment Corporation]]
* [[University of Waterloo]]
* [[Waterloo Maple]]
* [[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>
* Antarctica Systems
* [[World Wide Web Consortium|World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)]]
* [[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>
* [[Google]]
* [[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>
* [[Amazon.com]]}}
| occupation         = 
| known_for          = {{Plainlist|
* [[Web standards]]
* Co-author of [[XML]] specification<ref name="dblp"/><ref name="googlescholar"/><ref name="acm"/>}}
| education          = [[University of Guelph]] ([[Bachelor of Science|BS]])
| spouse             = Lauren Wood
| website            = {{URL|https://www.tbray.org/ongoing}}
}}

'''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>

==Education and early life==
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>

==Career==
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>
{{cite web
|url= https://www.geospatialworld.net/news/antarcti-ca-ceo-tim-bray-joins-technologys-elite/
|title= Antarcti.ca CEO Tim Bray joins technology's elite
|publisher= geospatialworld.net
|date = 23 January 2002
|access-date=4 May 2020}}
</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>
{{cite web
|url= https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/04/tim_bray_quits_amazon/
|title= 'VPs shouldn't go publicly rogue': XML co-author Tim Bray quits AWS over treatment of staff at Amazon's Retail division
|publisher= [[The Register]]
|date = 4 May 2020
|access-date= 4 May 2020}}
</ref><ref>
{{cite web
|url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52534567?intlink_from_url=&link_location=live-reporting-story
|title= Coronavirus: Amazon vice-president quits over virus firings
|publisher= [[BBC]]
|date = 4 May 2020
|access-date= 4 May 2020}}
</ref><ref name="Bray"/> 

Bray's entrepreneurial activities include:

===Waterloo Maple===
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.

===Open Text Corporation===
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.”<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'.

===Textuality===
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.

===Antarctica Systems===
In 1999 he founded Antarctica Systems, a Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada-based company that specialized in visualization-based business analytics.

==Web standards==
Bray has contributed to standards in technology, particularly [[Web standards]] at the [[World Wide Web Consortium]] (W3C).

===XML===
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.

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>

===W3C TAG===
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>

===Atom===
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]].

===JSON===
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.|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

==Software==
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>

==Environmentalism==
[[File:Tim-at-protect-the-inlet.jpg|thumb|Bray being arrested at the [[Trans Mountain Pipeline]] protest in 2019]]
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> 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>

In 2024 Bray co-edited a book titled ''Standing On High Ground'', a collection of personal stories of individuals who were arrested while protesting the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nine Unique Book Recommendations for Everyone on Your List |url=https://thetyee.ca/Presents/2024/12/04/Holiday-Book-Recommendations/ |access-date=2025-03-18 |website=The Tyee}}</ref>

== Bibliography ==

* {{Cite book |url=https://search.worldcat.org/title/1432733930 |title=Standing on High Ground: Civil Disobedience on Burnaby Mountain |publisher=Between the Lines |year=2024 |isbn=9781771136631 |editor-last=Cornell |editor-first=Rosemary |location=Toronto, Ontario |editor-last2=Drobnies |editor-first2=Adrienne |editor-last3=Bray |editor-first3=Tim}}

==See also==
* [[List of University of Waterloo people]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{OpenText}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bray, Tim}}
[[Category:1955 births]]
[[Category:OpenText]]
[[Category:Businesspeople in computing]]
[[Category:Canadian male bloggers]]
[[Category:Amazon (company) people]]
[[Category:Canadian computer scientists]]
[[Category:Google employees]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Businesspeople from Beirut]]
[[Category:Sun Microsystems people]]
[[Category:University of Guelph alumni]]
[[Category:Unix people]]
[[Category:Writers from Alberta]]