Tim Bray

Timothy William Bray
Timothy William Bray
Born	June 21, 1955 (age 71); Alberta, Canada
Occupation(s)	Software engineer, environmental advocate, political activist
Known for	Co-author of the XML specification, contributions to web standards (XML, Atom, JSON)
Notable work	Co-editor of XML and XML namespace specifications, editor of RFC 7159 and RFC 8259 (JSON standards), co-editor of Standing On High Ground

Timothy William Bray (born June 21, 1955) is a Canadian software engineer, environmental advocate, political activist, and one of the original authors of the XML specification. He was employed at Amazon Web Services from December 2014 until May 2020, resigning due to concerns regarding the dismissal of whistleblowers. Prior to this, Bray held roles at Google, Sun Microsystems, and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Additionally, he has founded or co-founded multiple startups, including Antarctica Systems.

Education and early life

Born in Alberta, Canada on June 21, 1955, Bray’s father was employed by the Dominion Experimental Farm Service in Fort Vermilion. Bray spent his childhood in Beirut, Lebanon before returning to Canada for higher education at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1981, with a double major in mathematics and computer science. In 2009, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Guelph. Bray has remarked that his transition from mathematics to computer science was driven by the latter’s greater efficiency in producing results and its superior financial prospects.

Career

Bray’s professional journey commenced at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in Toronto, where he worked as a software specialist. In 1983, he transitioned to Microtel Pacific Research and later, in 1987, became manager of the New Oxford English Dictionary (OED) project at the University of Waterloo. During this period, he gained experience with SGML, a technology that significantly influenced his subsequent contributions to Open Text Corporation and XML development.

He co-founded Antarctica Systems, serving as its CEO. In 2002, Upside magazine recognized him among its elite 100 IT leaders alongside notable figures such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, and Larry Ellison. From early 2004 through early 2010, Bray held the position of director of Web Technologies at Sun Microsystems. In 2010, he joined Google as a developer advocate specializing in Android and identity management technologies including OAuth and OpenID. He left Google in March 2014 due to his unwillingness to relocate from Vancouver to Silicon Valley.

Bray took on a vice president role at Amazon Web Services (AWS) starting December 2014 but resigned in May 2020. His departure was accompanied by public criticism concerning Amazon’s handling of whistleblowers who raised safety issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although he commended AWS overall, he opposed the termination of employees who voiced such concerns.

Bray's entrepreneurial ventures include:

Waterloo Maple

Between 1989 and 1990, Bray acted as part-time chief executive officer of Waterloo Maple, which developed the Maple software for mathematical computation.

Open Text Corporation

In 1989, Bray left the OED project to co-found Open Text Corporation alongside two colleagues. This company commercialized search engine technology that originated from the OED initiative.

Bray recognized in 1994 the emerging significance of Internet search engines, prompting Open Text to launch the Open Text Index in 1995—one of the earliest widely used commercial web search engines. Open Text Corporation is publicly listed on Nasdaq under the ticker OTEX. Bray served as senior vice president—technology from 1991 until 1996.

Textuality

Bray and his spouse Lauren Wood managed Textuality, a consultancy focused on web and publishing technologies. In 1999, he collaborated with Netscape and Ramanathan V. Guha to create the Resource Description Framework, an XML-based successor to the Meta Content Framework.

Antarctica Systems

In 1999, Bray established Antarctica Systems, a Vancouver-based enterprise dedicated to business analytics driven by visualization techniques.

Web standards

Bray played a pivotal role in shaping technology standards, particularly those related to Web standards at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

XML

Between 1996 and 1999, Bray served as a W3C Invited Expert and co-edited the specifications for XML and XML namespace. During this period, his consultancy with Netscape sparked objections from rival Microsoft, causing him to step down temporarily as editor. The conflict was resolved when Microsoft's Jean Paoli joined as co-editor.

In 2001, Bray penned Taxi to the Future, outlining a Transform-Aggregate-send XML-Interact framework aimed at improving web client performance and server efficiency—an approach similar to what later became known as the Ajax model.

W3C TAG

From 2001 through 2004, Bray was appointed by Tim Berners-Lee to the W3C Technical Architecture Group, where he contributed to defining web architecture standards.

Atom

Up until October 2007, Bray co-led the Atompub Working Group under the Internet Engineering Task Force, alongside Paul Hoffman. The Atom format was developed as a web syndication standard designed to address shortcomings in the RSS 2.0 format.

JSON

During 2013–2014, Bray participated in the IETF JSON Working Group as editor of RFC 7159, which updated the JSON Data Interchange Format specification with a focus on interoperability best practices. He also edited RFC 8259, a subsequent revision of JSON standards.

Software

Bray created multiple software tools including Bonnie, which inspired the development of Bonnie++, a Unix file system benchmarking utility; Lark, recognized as the first XML processor; and APE, the Atom Protocol Exerciser.

Environmentalism

Starting in 2018, Bray became actively involved in environmental advocacy amid the Trans Mountain Pipeline controversy. He was detained for contempt of court during protests at the Trans Mountain location in Burnaby, Canada. Additionally, Bray signed an open letter from business leaders urging British Columbia’s government to oppose the pipeline project and publicly expressed his criticism. In 2019, he stood out as the sole Amazon VP to endorse a shareholder letter urging Amazon Web Services to cease support for oil extraction activities. In 2024, Bray co-edited Standing On High Ground, a collection of personal narratives from individuals arrested during pipeline expansion protests.

Bibliography

Standing on High Ground: Civil Disobedience on Burnaby Mountain, Between the Lines, 2024, edited by Rosemary Cornell, Adrienne Drobnies, and Tim Bray, Toronto, Ontario, ISBN 9781771136631

References