Re: URI for language identifiers

Sandro,


Sandro Hawke wrote:
> 
> > since you might not be familiar with XTM syntax, the idea is
> > that for example language.xtm provides elements such as
> >
> > <topic id="de">
> > ...
> > </topic>
> >
> > witch 'produces' the URI
> >
> > http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/1.0/language.xtm#de
> >
> > which can be used to identify the German language.
> 
> I'm confused.  The topic map spec says the id on a <topic> element
> identifies that particular <topic> element in the document [1].  That
> sounds in line with conventional XML use and with XPointer use [2],
> not to mention conventional HTML usage.
> 
> But that's at odds with saying that
>    http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/1.0/language.xtm#de
> identifies the German language.
> 
> Did you mean to say instead that
>    http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/1.0/language.xtm#de should be used as
> a subjectIndicatorRef for the German language?  That makes sense, but
> it means it is *NOT* a good RDF identifier for the language.  URI-Refs
> occuring in RDF refer directly not indirectly as subject indicators.
> (That is, "http://www.w3.org/Consortium/" as an RDF term refers to a
> web page about the W3C, not to the W3C itself.)

Now I am confused. Given the RDF statement

http://www.w3.org/Consortium/ http://foo/director "Tim Berners Lee"

doesn't 'http://www.w3.org/Consortium/' refer to the W3C itself?


> 
> (I made a proposal that RDF URI-Refs should sometimes be seen as
> subject indicators [4], but it was not accepted.  After trying to
> implement my proposal I'm not so fond of it myself.)

I think that proposal was quite good. IMHO the question if a URI
identifies a 'page' or an abstract concept is NOT part of the
semantics of that particular URI but depends on the linking
context (the context in whitch the URI is used as a reference).

But I never managed to get that idea across I think...

Jan

> 
>    -- sandro
> 
> [1] http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/1.0/#elt-topic
> [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-xptr-framework-20030325/#shorthand
> [3] http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/1.0/#elt-subjectIndicatorRef
> [4] http://www.w3.org/2002/12/rdf-identifiers/

-- 
Jan Algermissen                           http://www.topicmapping.com
Consultant & Programmer	                  http://www.gooseworks.org