Re: 200 response as conclusive evidence of an information resource

I agree with David here.

Tim

On 2008-12 -01, at 07:47, Booth, David (HP Software - Boston) wrote:

>
> [Spinning this off as a separate topic]
>
>> From Jonathan Rees:
>>> From David Booth:
>>> I don't think that's quite the right perspective.  I think
>>> if a GET on a URI yields a 2xx response, that is conclusive
>>> evidence that the URI *does* denote an IR, regardless of
>>> anything else that the URI owner may state through other means.
>>
>> I know you have urged people to believe this, but I do not see
>> evidence that any formal document licenses this statement.  I know
>> others in the group, including me, expressly disagree, as IMO it
>> contradicts the "URI owner" section of AWWW 2.2.2.1, so please let's
>> just agree to disagree and try to move on.
>
> Are you saying that you think the httpRange-14 decision itself  
> contradicts the "URI owner" section of AWWW 2.2.2.1, or are you  
> saying that my interpretation contradicts it?  Any in either case,  
> why?  I don't think it contradicts the "URI owner" section of AWWW  
> 2.2.2.1 at all: the URI owner may use many means of communication to  
> declare what the URI should denote: email, conversation in an  
> elevator, publication in a journal article, blog entry, and -- yes  
> -- server configuration.  The fact that the owner may inadvertently  
> make a declaration that he/she didn't intend is not unique to server  
> configurations: misstatements can be made through *any* means of  
> communication.  Certainly, some means of communication may be deemed  
> more reliable than others, but that is a separate and orthogonal  
> question.  If I stand in a bar and claim that I was in New York on  
> January 1, 2000 and I also make a sworn statement claiming that I  
> was *not* in New York on January 1, 2000, I have still contradicted  
> myself, regardless of the fact that the sworn statement may be  
> deemed more reliable than the statement in the bar.
>
> Furthermore, to my mind there is a very good practical reason why a  
> 200 response *should* be considered conslusive evidence of an IR: to  
> permit people to make statements about the IR that produced the  
> awww:Representation that was returned.  Suppose you own a URI http://jar.example/danscar 
>  that you mean to denote Dan's car, and you create an HTML page that  
> describes the car.  You then "misconfigure" your server such that a  
> GET on http://jar.example/danscar yields a 200 response directly  
> with an awww:Representation of that page: you forgot to set up the  
> intervening 303 redirect that you intended.  I then perform a GET on  
> u and get a 200 response with your HTML page describing Dan's car.   
> I don't care about Dan's car, but I *do* notice that the page  
> contains invalid HTML, so I decide to add it to my HTML hall of  
> shame by stating:
>
>  <http://jar.example/danscar> a :InformationResource ;
>        :hasHTML  :invalid .
>
> Presumably the thing that yielded the offending awww:Representation  
> is an :InformationResource, since as far as I know, nothing else  
> *can* yield awww:Representations, and presumably that's what I got  
> back with the 200 response.  And using the URI http://jar.example/danscar 
>  to refer to that :InformationResource seems like the most natural  
> thing to do.  For the many billion other pages that exist on the  
> web, I can use the URI that yielded a 200 response to refer to  
> the :InformationResource that is that web page.  Why should http://jar.example/danscar 
>  suddenly *not* be deemed to refer to the :InformationResource that  
> returned the offending HTML in this case?  And how else *should* I  
> refer to the IR that yielded the 200 response?
>
> Can you give more explanation of why you see this as contradicting  
> the "URI owner" section of AWWW 2.2.2.1?
>
>
> David Booth, Ph.D.
> HP Software
> +1 617 629 8881 office  |  dbooth@hp.com
> http://www.hp.com/go/software
>
> Statements made herein represent the views of the author and do not  
> necessarily represent the official views of HP unless explicitly so  
> stated.

Received on Monday, 1 December 2008 11:41:10 UTC