- From: Pat Hayes <phayes@ihmc.us>
- Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:56:50 -0500
- To: Richard Cyganiak <richard@cyganiak.de>
- Cc: Larry Masinter <LMM@acm.org>, "'Roy T. Fielding'" <fielding@gbiv.com>, "'Jonathan Rees'" <jar@creativecommons.org>, "'Julian Reschke'" <julian.reschke@gmx.de>, "'HTTP Working Group'" <ietf-http-wg@w3.org>, <www-tag@w3.org>
On Jul 14, 2009, at 8:11 PM, Richard Cyganiak wrote: > Thanks Larry. I wish I could talk with such clarity. > > I want to take the discussion with Pat a bit further, but will do so > off-list. (Tomorrow, Pat -- I need to mull it over a bit. OK, but see quick remark below. > ) > > I initially joined the thread to say this: The HTTP spec, with Roy's > proposed new 303 text, accommodates all Semantic Web use cases I can > think of. Including using HTTP URIs to denote people. And my entire beef with it is that there is a case it misses, which is a URI denoting a person but which resolves to an http endpoint which has access to a 200-codable representation of itself (not of the person, but of it, the resource on the other side of the http interface.) And that IS a possibility, and I can even imagine some very nice uses for it. > It's good to see httpRange-14 slowly "trickle down" into the specs. Agreed. Pat > > Cheers, > Richard > > > On 14 Jul 2009, at 21:46, Larry Masinter wrote: > >> This conversation is filling my mailbox. Some general >> observations: >> >> (Pat, your arguments are laced with ad hominem, which makes reading >> the dialog unpleasant. I don't think Richard is being >> silly, intellectually dishonest, bloody arrogant, or any of the >> other terms you've used, please refrain.) >> >> It's the nature of standards discussions that people speak >> their point of view; doing so isn't arrogant. >> >> It is the nature of technical specifications that it is frequently >> necessary to take normal English words in particular technical >> way; it is not intellectually dishonest to do so. >> >> It is good practice for technical specifications in standards >> groups to say as little as possible in order to meet the >> needs of interoperability and the purpose for which the >> specification is being written. >> >> It is not necessary or even possible for a technical specification >> to answer questions that may be fundamental for applications >> that are outside of its scope. It is common, reasonable, >> and traditional for standards specifications to "not answer" >> questions because answering the question isn't necessary >> for the purpose for which the standard was written. >> >> It isn't necessary for the proper functioning of the web and >> to accomplish interoperability of web clients and servers >> to agree on how to use HTTP URIs and the HTTP protocol -- >> for that purpose, it isn't necessary to answer the question >> of whether a HTTP URI can identify a person. >> >> It may be necessary to answer the question in a technical >> specification for the semantic web and in the RDF >> specification -- but the answer more likely >> belong in those specifications and not in the >> IETF HTTP specification. >> >> It may be necessary for the IETF HTTP specification >> be edited in a way that made it clear that it didn't >> contain the answer to this question, but I'm not >> sure where to draw the line of describing things >> it doesn't answer. >> >> It's easy to imagine a system in which a URI is used >> to identify a person for the purpose of that system. >> But I can't see how IETF, W3C, or continued discussion >> on any of our mailing lists are going to converge >> any time soon on answers to the philosophical questions >> that have been with us for millennia. What is it >> that "Pat Hayes" identifies, anyway? Can I use >> mailto:phayes@ihmc.us as a URI to identify you? >> Well, that's a question outside of the "mailto:" >> URI spec, I think. >> >> Perhaps there needs to be a better way of distinguishing >> the statements "this specification does not limit the scope >> of applicability" and "this specification applies in all >> circumstances". >> >> If you had some better way of phrasing it so that it would >> be clear the former was meant rather than the latter, I >> think that would be helpful. >> >> The fact that something "does matter" -- to you, to the >> RDF community, to the W3C, to the world at large -- >> does not mean that it is appropriate to "matter" in >> the context of the HTTP spec. >> >> It is an important design principle for developing >> specifications to keep specifications orthogonal: for the purposes >> of the HTTP protocol, it does not matter what resources >> are exactly. For the purpose of resource identification, it should >> not matter what the protocol is; tying semantic web >> interpretation to a particular error code in the HTTP >> protocol seems like bad design to me. >> >> The idea that the HTTP working group should care about the >> semantic web and change its specification to meet some >> semantic web requirement for use of HTTP URIs in semantic >> web applications -- well, that raises several red flags >> for me, that we're building specifications that are not >> sufficiently orthogonal that things that *shouldn't* matter >> are taken as important questions that *must* be answered. >> >> The HTTP specification is *not* about what a "resource" is. >> It *is* about how to use and implement the HTTP protocol. >> >> There continues to be some confusion in the discussion between >> "URI" and "HTTP URI" that I find disturbing and confusing, because >> I think sometimes statements about one are attributed to the >> other. Not all URIs are HTTP URIs. Please try to be more careful. >> >> Regards, >> >> Larry >> -- >> http://larry.masinter.net >> >> >> > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ IHMC (850)434 8903 or (650)494 3973 40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office Pensacola (850)202 4440 fax FL 32502 (850)291 0667 mobile phayesAT-SIGNihmc.us http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes
Received on Wednesday, 15 July 2009 15:58:10 UTC