RE: uri, urn and info

Our experience with  an http based dereferencing system for isbn, 
ticker, and journal articles (linkbaton) showed us that in the real 
world, web site producers are seldom willing to give up control over 
uri resolution, even if you pay them to do so.

However, they have been rather more willing to adopt a identifier 
resolution architecture that looks like:

http://customers.own.resolver/?id=x-info:ticker:nyse:TWX

with a default of no link or

http://producers.default.resolver/?id=x-info:ticker:nyse:TWX

so based on the observed behavior of the uri "market", the absence of 
inherent dereference is a selling point to large market segments. You 
can be a pessimist and say that this will cripple everything, or you 
can be an optimist and say, gee, maybe we can actually get this whole 
semantic web thing flying even on one wing.

Eric (an optimist)

At 8:54 AM +0000 10/9/03, Patrick Stickler wrote:
>x-info:ticker:nyse:TWX
>
>	(the persistence issue aside, for the moment)
>
>	Here is a prime example of why an http: URI
>	would be a far more useful means of denotation
>	than an info: URI.
>
>	If the above were rather, e.g.
>
>		http://ticker.info.niso.org/nyse/TWX
>
>	Then web users could (potentially) obtain
>	a representation of the current state of the TWX
>	ticker simply by dereferencing it (with probable
>	redirection from ticker.info.niso.org to a NYSE
>	server) without any change to the present,
>	globally deployed web infrastructure.
>
>	That doesn't mean the URI *has* to resolve to
>	anything, but deciding whether it does, and if
>	so, to what, is not affected by the URI itself.
>	And if decided at first to provide no representations,
>	a change to that decision has no impact on either
>	its denotation or its non-resolvable usage to date.
>
>	Likewise, SW agents could (potentially) obtain
>	(by means of a standardised solution such as URIQA)
>	an authoritative, formal, RDF description of the
>	denoted resource, which could include the state
>	of the ticker expressed precisely, suitable for
>	inference engines to e.g. deduce whether one
>	should buy or sell ;-)
>
>	But "hiding" the denoted resource behind an info:
>	URI (even if it can eventually be "found" via ad hoc
>	resolution schemes)  is hindering, not helping, the
>	web and SW.
>
>	Regards,
>
>	Patrick


-- 

Eric Hellman, President                            Openly Informatics, Inc.
eric@openly.com                                    2 Broad St., 2nd Floor
tel 1-973-509-7800 fax 1-734-468-6216              Bloomfield, NJ 07003
http://www.openly.com/1cate/      1 Click Access To Everything

Received on Thursday, 9 October 2003 12:24:43 UTC