RE: [metaDataInURI-31]: Initial draft finding for public review/ comme nt.

Hi Roy,

Thanks for being patient, I'm sure repeated explaination of this stuff gets
tiresome.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Roy T. Fielding [mailto:fielding@apache.org] 
> Sent: 14 July 2003 16:27
> To: Williams, Stuart
> Cc: www-tag@w3.org
> Subject: Re: [metaDataInURI-31]: Initial draft finding for 
> public review/ comme nt.

<snip/>

> The resource referred to by the URI does not vary.  What 
> varies is the target that is ultimately referred to by the 
> "sentence" surrounding the URI referral.  For example, if I say
> 
>     I want one of these cars: <http://www.vw.com/touareg/>.
> 
> Then I have used that URI to identify a category of vehicles 
> by reference to an HTTP resource identified by an http URI.  
> The URI is acting as an identifier for that VW brand of car, 
> and it seems unlikely that www.vw.com will reuse that 
> identifier for something else, even though it is clear that 
> <http://www.vw.com/touareg/> on its own is a website for the 
> vehicle brand and not the brand itself.

Let's see if I've got this...

<http://www.vw.com/touareg/> (with no surrounding context - which I guess is
itself a context) identifies a website about a brand of car.

The sentence:

  "I want one of these cars: <http://www.vw.com/touareg/>." 

indirectly identifies the particular brand/model by reference to the website
about the brand.

The sentence surrounding the reference to the web-site establishes that the
referent is the brand/model and not the website itself.

ie. the referent of a reference made using a URI is generally dependent on
its surrounding context.

> In other words, context matters even when the URI itself is 
> context-independent, and use within a given context is what 
> defines the meaning of a reference.

Ok... I think we agree.

> That is why there is no 
> conflict at all between the references <a href="http://example.com"> 
> and <foo xmlns="http://example.com">; the context surrounding the 
> reference defines meaning by its use, not by the URI scheme.

Ironic... I was going to use exactly the same example in my response to your
previous message, just didn't manage for formulate it so compactly and
abandoned the attempt.

> 
> ....Roy

Thanks,

Stuart

Received on Monday, 14 July 2003 12:22:18 UTC