RE: Back to HTTP semantics

Hello Jonathan,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Rees [mailto:jar@creativecommons.org] 
> Sent: 15 June 2009 17:17
> To: Williams, Stuart (HP Labs, Bristol)
> Cc: Pat Hayes; David Booth; AWWSW TF
> Subject: Re: Back to HTTP semantics
> 
> On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Williams, Stuart (HP Labs,
> Bristol)<skw@hp.com> wrote:
> >  the meme that RDF interpretration of URI are constrained 
> by what might be called the Web natural interpretation is not 
> original to me. Whilst I can understand and appreciate the 
> denial that you mention in RDFMT with respect to the 
> formalism presented there in - leaving interpretation 
> unconstrained by the web itself - I think there are many who 
> see interpretation implicitly constrained in that way when 
> one joins the logical system RDF with the pragmatics of the 
> web. Eg. If in RDF one were to use http://www.w3.org as a 
> reference to my left foot, there would be an inconsistency in 
> the total system even that were not so from the RDF 
> interpretation alone.
> 
> I was not talking about memes or implicit constraints, which are a
> different matter. This is sort of like saying people should only use
> the C programming language for programming computers. It's empirically
> mostly true, and why would you want to use it for any other reason? So
> what's the problem?
> 
> If you can find a *normative* statement explicitly connecting RFC2396
> "identification" to RDF "interpretation" I'll give you 10 quid (next
> time I see you).

I think that your £10 is safe :-). 

I think that for some people (principally from a web background), the connection is so obvious that it hardly needs stating; whilst for others it is obvious to neatly (and explicitly) decouple a formal RDF interpretation form a "web-interpretation" rendering not particular significance to the choice of using URI as a naming system. I suspect that few from the GOFW world will have picked up on the explicit denial in RDFMT that Pat referred us to.

> I don't count AWWW, which quietly assumes the
> connection in two inconspicuous spots. It is not prescriptive on this
> point, and it's not clear that it would be normative even if it were
> prescriptive.

:-)

> I'm not saying that making the connection is necessarily a bad thing
> (although it might be); just that it hasn't been done. I've already
> suggested that introducing a new kind of RDF interpretation called a
> "webarch-interpretation" might be a way to do it, although this
> obviously takes us outside the realm of logical semantics and into
> much more treacherous waters.
> 
> Jonathan
> 

Stuart
--

Received on Monday, 15 June 2009 17:19:11 UTC