Re: [office-metadata] "Logical/abstract" vs. "physical" representation

["Bruce D'Arcus" <bdarcus@gmail.com>]

On Mar 6, 2007, at 11:26 AM, Michael Brauer - Sun Germany - ham02 -  
Hamburg wrote:

...

>> As I said, we should not define the URI scheme (though we should  
>> definitely give examples), but we should certainly define the  
>> goals of being globally unique and persistent, and the  
>> implications of them not being so.
>
> I don't think we can guarantee uniqueness on the file format level.  
> In you other reply you say:
>
> > Oh, and no, it would be stored within the document, and assigned by
> > either a user or (more commonly) an application.
>
> If you do so, then you only have to copy the document using a "cp"  
> command, and you have already broken the uniqueness.

As I said in reply to Norm on the blog thread on this, if you have  
identical copies with the same URI, I don't think there's a problem  
(and Norm agreed).

The problem becomes if you open the copy and edit it. I don't deny  
that would present a problem, since it would then be a different  
document.

But I still think there are more problems with leaving the path as  
the default URI.

>>>> Example 3:
>>>> Rob wants to enable his use case of external annotation of  
>>>> files. Same problem as above.
>>>
>>> Yes and no. As for the location of the file itself, it is the  
>>> same problem (Rob, what's your point of view: Is it within the  
>>> scope of our TC to define stable IRIs for documents?) But I  
>>> assume Rob does not only wants to annotate the document itself,  
>>> but also objects within it. And that's where the relative IRIs of  
>>> your first example could be used again.
>> But the point is if you don't have a stable document URI, the  
>> relative URIs don't help you; your object URIs are still wrong.
>> I don't understand what's so controversial about saying a document  
>> ought to have a stable ID.
>
> Its not controversial to say that a document should have a stable  
> URI, if this is guideline for authors and implementors. But because  
> we cannot guarantee the uniqueness, and because it is not under our  
> control what happens to document, but also because there may be  
> cases where the location of the IRI is sufficient, we should not  
> make this mandatory.
>
> Is that clearer?

Sort of, your langauge is still a little vague on details. So let's  
narrow it down farther and present a choice: we require a document  
URI, or we do not.

If we do not (which means using the path as default URI), then my  
guess is implementors won't bother, which I think will be bad.

I'll leave it to others to decide this, since I've made my case, and  
you've made your's I think.

Bruce