RE: We don't need no stinkin' identity

Personally, I think the problem of grounding
assertions in the real world is a Hard Problem,
and that those who've been working on RDF or
Semantic Web have tried to avoid this problem
by wishful thinking that the "URI" could somehow
be used as a universal semantic concept
designator and that it would do the heavy lifting
all by itself.

I just don't think it works, and no amount
of wordsmithing in RFC 2396bis will actually
help much.

I'm all for the URI specification explicitly
disclaiming this responsibility. For a proposed
specific wording:

> What is a Resource? Can a URI be used to identify a Concept?

> This specification does not define the word 'resource' carefully,
> nor does it define how a URI can be used to 'Identify' a
> 'Resource' with enough precision to allow URIs to be used
> as grounded terms in any kind of logic language. First,
> note that the _semantics_ of a URI are not defined in
> this specification. Each URI scheme itself defines the
> relationship between URIs of that scheme and the resources
> they identify. In all known cases, that definition isn't
> enough to allow the URIs of that scheme to be used, by
> themselves, as unambiguous identifiers when trying to
> make logical assertions.