RE: web proper names

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-rdf-interest-request@w3.org
> [mailto:www-rdf-interest-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of ext Chris Purcell
> Sent: 22 September, 2004 10:27
> To: David Menendez
> Cc: Hamish Harvey; www-rdf-interest@w3.org
> Subject: Re: web proper names
> 
> 
> 
> > Here's another scenario that helped shape my thinking on 
> the subject.
> > Lets say we have two URIs that identify the same resource.
> >
> >     <http://example.com/thing/1> owl:sameAs 
> > <http://example.org/obj/58>.
> >
> > Effectively, that means that anywhere we see
> > <http://example.com/thing/1> in an RDF graph, we can replace it with
> > <http://example.org/obj/58>, and vice versa.
> >
> > However, it is probably the case that dereferencing those URIs gives
> > different pages.
> >
> >     _:P1 ex:resultOfDereferencing
> >             "http://example.com/thing/1"^^xsd:anyURI.
> >     _:P2 ex:resoltOfDereferencing
> >             "http://example.org/obj/58"^^xsd:anyURI.
> >
> > If we tried to represent this information like so:
> >
> >     _:P1 ex:resultOfDereferencing <http://example.com/thing/1>.
> >     _:P2 ex:resultOfDereferencing <http://example.org/obj/58>.
> >
> > we wouldn't be able to distinguish the sources of _:P1 and _:P2.
> 
> An excellent point. 

+1

I think that David's example, along with the foundation presented by Hamish,
is one of the best presentations of why the web layer itself must remain
agnostic regarding the actual denotation of the URIs via which it provides
access to representations and how the semantic web provides the missing
machinery to (a) express the semantics of the URIs being used, and 
(b) differentiate between the function of URIs as opaque identifiers
versus the function of URIs to indirectly access information relating
to the things identified.

Perhaps Hamish and David could put an updated version of this on a wiki
somewhere where it could be more effectively referenced...

Cheers,

Patrick

Received on Wednesday, 22 September 2004 09:33:17 UTC