Re: Issue-57

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 9:19 AM, Xiaoshu Wang <xiao@renci.org> wrote:

>
> As far as I can tell, there is only one issue. The definition of IR and the
> treatment of it. All other issues come back to it.
>

I concur with Tim that this isn't the issue at all. Moreover I have stated
and I firmly believe that virtually anyone can easily understand the
distinction between information and that which the information is about.
That doesn't mean they *like* the means of advertising the distinction, or
see the *need*.

This is why the "resolution" that you referred is seriously wrong. It forces
> me, along with many others, to honor some metaphysical categorization that
> no one in the world can objectively define.
>

The important part of the resolution is: "they may mint "http" URIs for any
resource". This says that http URLs can refer to anything.

What is it suppose to accomplish then? I think it has been around five years
> since the httpRange-14? Can TAG shows us how many has followed httpRange-14
> and what, if any, have we gained from that?
>

Since then http URIs have been used in, important uses case, to refer to
anything. This is an advance because it documents that one need not invent
new schemes to refer to, e.g., cars, and hence reduces the complexity of
implementation of systems that need to refer to entities other than web
pages. Because of this, for instance, LSID's reason to exist has essentially
been removed and it has fallen out of use, which is good, and there are more
applications that are comfortably deployed to the web.


>
>
> Casting the issue as a matter of accepting diversity is as appropriate here
> as it would be in a discussion of the format of TCP headers. If there isn't
> agreement about which bytes specify the source port versus destination port
> the damned thing won't work and the same thing is true here.
>
>
> No, it is not the same as the format issue. Promoting XML, for instance,
> does not prevent the development and the thriving of other formats, such as
> YAML/JSON etc. The httpRange-14 is an entirely different beast. As I have
> argued a long time ago, httpRange-14 forces me to answer a metaphysical
> question that I cannot answer before I can put a thing on the web.
>

It does not. It provides you a means to escape *any* implication about what
the nature of a resource is, namely by following the 303 protocol. It opens
the web up to *more* than was previously able to be put "on the web". Read
carefully. If there is any burden it is in interpreting what URIs that are
200 responders refer to, but this doesn't interfere with *you* putting
anything on the web without preconception.

-Alan