Re: Uniform access to descriptions

On Apr 10, 2008, at 12:13 PM, Xiaoshu Wang wrote:
>
> I don't want to be annoying.  But please make a clear and objective  
> definition of *description* for UA2D.
>
> Honestly, I don't think how you can separate UA2D from httpRange-14  
> because you can only define *description* w.r.t.  IR or non-IR.

"What is a description" is a good question. I will interpret it to  
mean "what did JAR mean by 'description'".

The wiki page [1] does not define the term, but it does say  
"Descriptions might include information about the thing such as  
bibliographic metadata, factual information, reviews or assessments,  
related materials, access control or licensing information, etc.".

When I chose the subject line "uniform access to descriptions" [1] I  
was making up a phrase because I needed one; I admit it's not great.  
I used "uniform access" following Henry, and "description" following  
Stuart's lead, encouraged by the "D" in "RDF". I had no intention of  
being rigorous since the point was to gather use cases. Now that the  
arrival of use cases is a trickle, we should look at the ones we have  
and figure out what they're doing and how best to analyze them, and  
then come up with a new term and/or a "clear and objective definition".

Jonathan

[1] http://esw.w3.org/topic/FindingResourceDescriptions