Re: URI versus URI Reference

John Cowan wrote:

> "Paul W. Abrahams" wrote:
>
> > ``A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a compact string of characters that
> > identifies an abstract or physical resource.  A URI is absolute, i.e., its meaning
> > does not depend on the context in which it appears.''
>
> The first sentence is true and useful.  The second sentence is false: a URI
> *is* absolute, but is not therefore necessarily independent of its context,
> as in the case of mailto: and file: URIs.

OK.  Can you come up with a replacement for the i.e. that describes, in a short simple
phrase, what ``absolute'' means?   Or (this is the possibility I dread) is it the case
that we don't really know what it means?

Paul Abrahams