[xri] [Fwd: Re: Clarifying what a URL identifies (Four Uses of a URL)]

[Peter C Davis <peter.davis@neustar.biz>]

This prompts me to raise an issue, which i think is incompletely 
addressed with laisons to other standards bodies:

I think we need formal language (in the requirements draft) which 
ecourages the research into complimentary and conflicting resource 
expression methodologies.

Having said that, todays mention of outside entities questioning the 
need/benefits for this TCs output (which drives clarification in the 
requirements draft), goes a long way to this end.  Clear articulation of 
the gaps in current resource identifier notations should be included in 
the introduction.

The W3C TAG, in particular, is likely to keep a scepticle eye, until 
these shortcommings are well laid out.

--- peterd

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Clarifying what a URL identifies (Four Uses of a URL)
Resent-Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 06:42:20 -0500 (EST)
Resent-From: www-tag@w3.org
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 11:17:48 +0000
From: Graham Klyne <GK@ninebynine.org>
To: Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@w3.org>
CC: Sandro Hawke <sandro@w3.org>, www-tag@w3.org
References: <200301212127.h0LLRNA15108@wadimousa.hawke.org>


At 10:02 PM 1/22/03 -0500, Tim Berners-Lee wrote:
 >One *can* introduce a new system with a different design
 >and argue its merits. Sandro has designed an alternative
 >system http://www.w3.org/2002/12/rdf-identifiers/
 >which seems consistent and I haven't finished thinking
 >about - there are things I like about it and things I don't.
 >But it does address all the questions, I think.

FWIW, I think Sandro's proposal is consistent with the current state of RDF
specification, and other views of URIs that have been expressed here,
except maybe the view that http: URIs (without fragments) should always
denote documents (I hope I don't misinterpret).  My point of divergence
with that proposal is the suggestion it should be part of the RDF core,
because I don't see the necessity for it to be there.

The formal semantics for RDF does tell us one thing, though:  in a given
interpretation of an RDF graph (document, or collection of documents
considered together), a given URI must always denote the same single
thing.  So we can't have a graph in which a URI sometimes denotes a car and
elsewhere simultaneously denotes a picture.

#g


-------------------
Graham Klyne
<GK@NineByNine.org>

-- 
--- peterd
Sr Security Architect
Neustar, Inc.		smtp:   peter.davis@neustar.biz
(571) 434 5516		jabber: peter.davis@checkov.neustarlab.biz

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