Are URI-References bound to resources?

In RDF, I've seen people binding URIs like:

http://example.org/q#foo
  and
http://example.org/q#bar

to different resources. The URI spec clearly says:

<q cite="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt">
   A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a compact string of characters
   for identifying an abstract or physical resource.
</q>

but later when it defines URI references, it says:

<q>
   The term "URI-reference" is used here to denote the common usage of a
   resource identifier.  A URI reference may be absolute or relative,
   and may have additional information attached in the form of a
   fragment identifier.  However, "the URI" that results from such a
   reference includes only the absolute URI after the fragment
   identifier (if any) is removed and after any relative URI is resolved
   to its absolute form.
</q>

This seems to imply that URI references (that is, URIs with fragment
identifiers) are not bound to a resource themselves. Instead, the only
resource involved is that of the absolute URI itself.

Is this interpretation correct? If so, it would have serious consequences
for many RDF specifications.

-- 
Aaron Swartz <me@aaronsw.com>|           my.info
  <http://www.aaronsw.com>   |   <http://my.theinfo.org>
AIM: JediOfPi | ICQ: 33158237|  the future of news, today

Received on Friday, 11 May 2001 14:20:58 UTC