Re: Should tags be URNs? (was Re: Proposal: 'tag' URIs)

Tim Kindberg <timothy@hpl.hp.com> wrote:

> (A) What is it to 'identify a resource' and to 'use a name'?
> (B) Why 'their resource', not 'resource_s_'?

We seem to be having some confusion with the terms resource and binding. A
URN should always name the same resource, where a resource is defined as:

<q cite="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396">
         The resource is the conceptual mapping to an entity or set of
         entities, not necessarily the entity which corresponds to that
         mapping at any particular instance in time.  Thus, a resource
         can remain constant even when its content---the entities to
         which it currently corresponds---changes over time, provided
         that the conceptual mapping is not changed in the process.
</q>

I assume a binding refers to the entity which a resource might correspond
to. To go back to the bike concept, we can claim that:

http://bike.example.org/serial/03030404 identifies the bicycle with that
serial number. If I were to switch the serial numbers on two bikes, the
binding, entity, or hunk of metal and stuff that the resource is mapped to
has changed, but the concept (bike with serial number 03030404) has not.

-- 
[ Aaron Swartz | me@aaronsw.com | http://www.aaronsw.com ]

Received on Sunday, 29 April 2001 15:00:44 UTC