Re: slight change to http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-primer/#rdfmodel

Eric Prud'hommeaux wrote:

> The RDF primer model example [1] makes an assertion that has
> [[
> a subject http://www.example.org/index.html
> a predicate http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/creator
> and an object http://www.example.org/staffid/85740
> ]]
> I request changing 
> http://www.example.org/staffid/85740
> to
> http://www.example.org/staffid#8570
> per the concepts document [2].


Eric--

Thanks for the comment.  I'm reluctant to make this change, for several 
reasons (which I'll describe below).  I'm also a bit unclear as to the 
background behind the request, so I need a little more information from 
you about this.

I'm reluctant to make the change because, even if we restrict the change 
to the staffid/85740 usage, this doesn't just appear in one example; 
it's used throughout the text of Section 2 (it also appears in Section 
4), so the changes required would be rather extensive.  (If the idea 
behind this is that *all* usages of plain URIs should be replaced by 
usages of URI#fragment, the changes become even more extensive, 
involving much of the Primer).

Such changes would also, in my opinion, be somewhat misleading.  RDF 
URIrefs can contain fragments, but they don't need to, and the Primer 
deliberately has a mixture of usages of both kinds of URIrefs for that 
reason (a number of the examples in Section 3 use URIrefs that include 
fragments, as do examples in Section 5).  The Dublin Core property 
URIrefs, for example, don't use fragments, and we can't really change 
that.

I'm not sure what to make of your reference to the Concepts document. 
That section of the Concepts document describes a way of interpreting 
RDF URIrefs that *do* include fragments, but I don't see it as mandating 
that they *have* to contain fragments (you might also look at what the 
Primer Appendix A says about fragments).

I'm also not sure what to make of your comment below.  What ambiguity of 
URIs (without fragments) are you referring to?  It seems to me that a 
URI is unambiguous (at least as an opaque name, the way RDF uses it). 
Also, if a URI without a fragment is ambiguous, how can it become less 
ambiguous by adding a fragment to it?

--Frank


> 
> While the exact semantics of URI#fragment are still subject to debate, I
> believe they are considered less likely to be ambigous than URI alone.
> 
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-primer/#rdfmodel
> [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-concepts/#section-fragID
> 


-- 
Frank Manola                   The MITRE Corporation
202 Burlington Road, MS A345   Bedford, MA 01730-1420
mailto:fmanola@mitre.org       voice: 781-271-8147   FAX: 781-271-875

Received on Tuesday, 18 February 2003 14:59:56 UTC