Re: Semantic Web Statement Contexts (was: Can there be a URI for the concepts "I", "you",...)

Hi Richard--


On Dec 30, 2006, at 5:57 AM, Richard Cyganiak wrote:

> Hi Frank,
>
> On 29 Dec 2006, at 18:15, Frank Manola wrote:
>> It seems to me that whether or not one feels that httpRange-14  
>> adequately addresses the general disambiguation issue, this  
>> approach encodes useful metadata about the resource (an opinion as  
>> to whether all the essential characteristics of this resource can  
>> be encoded in a message that we can send over the network) in a  
>> server response, rather than declaratively (e.g., in OWL).
>
> Yes, the 303 approach encodes useful metadata (the "information  
> resource flag") in the HTTP interaction, rather than in RDF/OWL.
>
> But ...
>
> First, your claim that this is non-declarative is silly. I'm sure  
> you know this and were just sloppy in your choice of terms.

Well, possibly silly or sloppy, but I'm always willing to learn :-)   
Certainly if you have to invoke a procedure (in this case, to  
dereference the URI) and evaluate the response, it doesn't seem  
"declarative" in the same sense as simply having an OWL statement to  
the effect that the URI does or doesn't have certain characteristics.

>
> Second, arguably this bit of metadata is exactly where it should  
> be. It is transfer metadata after all. The distinction between  
> information resources and non-information resources is not relevant  
> to most application domains, but is relevant to the question of  
> moving representations over the network.

I agree with your "arguably"!  My main point is that, whatever you  
think about httpRange-14, there's no reason to not also have that  
same kind of metadata available in OWL.  For one thing, if they find  
it useful people will develop their own OWL to record it anyway,  
along with various amplifications that have been suggested (e.g.,  
imaginary resources, if that's a distinction you're concerned about).

But I also think you're taking a rather strict interpretation of the  
distinction between information resources and non-information  
resources as being only a transfer-layer issue about moving  
representations over the network in considering the significance of  
this.  That is, if I remember correctly, the original issue was about  
determining whether a URI named a car or a document about the car  
(for example).  The idea of an information resource was introduced to  
help in this disambiguation.  So now http can tell me whether I'm  
directly referring to an information resource, or whether I'm  
possibly referring to something else.  And now this may sound like a  
strictly transfer-layer distinction.  But it seems to me I may well  
be interested at higher layers in what this distinction is (or at  
least may be) encoding (does this URI name the W3C, or its web page?).

Cheers.

--Frank

Received on Saturday, 30 December 2006 17:48:51 UTC