Re: A plea for peace. was: RE: DAML+OIL (March 2001) released: a correction

David Allsopp <dallsopp@signal.dera.gov.uk> wrote:

>>> No; NAMES allow people to give things names. Do you seriously think
>>> that people didn't give things names before the Web came along?
>> 
>> Of course, but often these names were meant multiple things or slightly
>> different things to different people. There is no authority to define the
>> "meaning" of a word. However, it is clear who defines the meaning of a URI
>> -- its "owner".
> 
> I don't understand - who 'owns' an arbitrary URI?

The owner is defined by the URI scheme.

> for example, http://www.microsoft.com/ is clearly owned by MS, but who
> owns http://ludicrously.long.domain.name.I.just.invented/, or

I don't believe it is owned yet, since it has not been registered with ICANN
/ root DNS. (I'm not positive, but pretty sure. It may also be considered as
if that ICANN owns it, but I don't think so.)

> http://www.pixeltronic.com/ which may or may not be a real company (I

Similar to above.

> haven't checked!), or urn:A23B67B675BErandomlygeneratedgibberish or
> similar?

That URN would probably be owned by the first person who used it, which is
likely the only one because duplication is so unlikely.

-- 
[ Aaron Swartz | me@aaronsw.com | http://www.aaronsw.com ]

Received on Wednesday, 11 April 2001 16:53:18 UTC