RE: Fwd "a comment on NFC"

You know, Francois, this analogy doesn't help 
your case.  Obviously using a non-normal form is 
not a crime or a sin, and it is not evil, and the 
analogy just makes your point seem ludicrous. 
Remember we are here responding to a strenuous 
technical objection to the restriction being 
applied at all, on interop grounds.  If most, or 
even a substantial fraction, of the world is 
'evil' then it is our job to allow them to be 
evil, and the priests can go to hell.

Pat Hayes


>Brian McBride wrote:
>>  I wonder if we might look at it this way.  Lets be careful who we are
>>  talking to with these two statements.  I suggest they are
>>  targetted at different audiences, and are compatible.
>
>There's a more abstract notion behind the statements: un-normalized data is
>evil.  It has serious interop and security implications.
>
>Analogy: stealing is evil.
>
>>  When we say literal strings SHOULD be in NFC we are speaking
>>  to creators
>>  of RDF data saying you SHOULD create RDF literal strings that
>>  are in NFC
>>  (but MAY NOT, if "the full implications must be understood
>>  and carefully weighed).
>
>We tell visitors to a store: "Thou shalt not steal".
>
>>  When we say that implementations SHOULD accept literal
>>  strings that are
>>  not in NFC we are talking to implementors who can rely on the
>>  creators
>>  of the RDF that is not in NFC to have made a sensible choice, but who
>>  MAY refuse to process it if they think they know better.
>
>Does the store owner tell his employees to trust all visitors, even those
>who appear to go out with stuff they haven't paid.  I think not.
>
>>  Does that fly?
>
>I'm afraid not.  Early-normalization cannot work without verification.
>Therefore SHOULD check and SHOULD NOT accept un-normalized text.  You may
>have valid reasons to trust the sender, OK, we have SHOULDs and we even have
>specific language about "certified text" in Charmod.  But the basic idea is
>it's evil, don't do it and catch it when you can.
>
>--
>François


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Received on Thursday, 2 October 2003 21:17:12 UTC