RE: ContentType negotiation

I think once again it is necessary to keep in mind the 
distinction between what is accessed through the URL, in 
other words what the URL *locates*, and what the URL does 
*identify*.
Though URLs allow to access a *representation* of the 
identified resource, the nature of this resource can 
usually not be determined from one such representation.

It seems quite handy that the URL locate both a page and 
meta-data about the page, depending on context negociation.

After all, this example is not that different from the W3C 
logo [1] : one could argue that each version of the logo 
(PNG or GIF) is a resource by itself and deserves its own 
URL (it has, actually). Yet, URL [1] allows to access both, 
depening only on the content negociation.

On the other hand, I'm not sure the distinction between 
data-representation and meta-data-representation realy 
comes under content-negociation. How could I request meta-
data about some RDF document ?
Or do I have to consider that any meta-data about some RDF 
must be self contained, since it can be ?... Not very 
satisfying to me...

 Pierre-Antoine

[1] http://www.w3.org/Icons/w3c_main
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Received on Tuesday, 24 April 2001 09:40:00 UTC