Opacity and resource metadata (was Re: proposed TAG issues: uniform resource version info and access of resource metadata

Hi,

On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 04:14:40PM +0200, Ossi Nykänen wrote:
> In addition (for symmetry), I think there should be a recommended URI
> naming convention for versioning (derived from an appropriate XML Schema
> data type). For instance, when presented a resource
> 
> 	[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210
> 
> an agent could hypothesise that there is an "up-to-date" resource
> 
> 	[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml
> 
> and mechanically check the metadata of that resource ([2]):
> 
> 	[2m] http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml/meta.rdf

I'd suggest that asserting the relationship between those resources
would best be done with a triple, rather than naming conventions.  If
done with an HTTP header, you might get these headers in a response to a
GET or HEAD on http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210;

  HTTP/1.1 200 Ok
  Metadata: http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml/meta.rdf
  Up-to-date: http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml

Note that you can run out and write up an I-D to define these headers
right now if you want to; Web architecture already supports this form
of extension.  IMO, I don't think this is anything requiring TAG
attention.

Thanks.

MB
-- 
Mark Baker.  Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.   http://www.markbaker.ca

   Will distribute objects for food