In the early specifications of the Web (1990-1994), the term "resource" is barely used at all. The Web is designed as a network of more or less static addressable objects, basically files and documents, linked together in the form of an hypertext. The objects are considered insofar as they can be addressed and handled through a specific protocol, Web documents are accessed and browsed using [[HTTP]] protocol, files are exchanged using [[File transfer protocol|file transfer protocol]], etc.
The first systematic use of the term resource was introduced in June 1994 by RFC 1630. In this document is defined the generic notion of [[Universal Resource Identifier]] (URI), with its two variants [[Uniform Resource Locator |Universal Resource Locator]] (URL) and [[Uniform Resource Name |Universal Resource Name]] (URN). A resource is implicitly defined as something which can be identified, the identification deserving two distinct purposes, naming and addressing, the latter only being dependent on a protocol. It is noticeable that RFC 1630 does not attempt to define at all the notion of resource, actually it barely uses the term besides its occurrence in URI, URL and URN, and still speaks about "Objects of the Network".
RFC 1738 (December 1994) further specifies URLs, the term 'Universal' being changed to 'Uniform'. The document is making a more systematic use of 'resource' to refer to objects which are 'available', or 'can be located and accessed' through the Internet. There again, the term 'resource' itself is not explicitly defined.
