Fielding Co-authors HTTP/1.1 Specification

Roy Fielding, alongside other collaborators, formally publishes RFC 2616, the specification for HTTP/1.1. This work was critical in solidifying the protocol that would become the backbone for REST.

Significance

This specification established the stateless, request/response paradigm and resource identification via URIs that are fundamental to REST, long before REST itself was formally named. It showed Fielding's deep understanding of the web's mechanics.