Re: ISSUE-5 Definition of Resource

"Peter F. Patel-Schneider" <pfpschneider@gmail.com> wrote on 01/08/2015 
06:06:01 PM:

> I believe that the working group is obligated not to use "resource" 
> in the way 
> that it is used in the Resource Shape spec.  I think that it would be a 
very 
> good idea for the Resource Shape people to use a different word 
thanresource 
> for "RDF representation of an information resource".

The primary audience of the "Resource Shape people" (aka OSLC) is software 
engineers who are building web applications. They use the term "resource" 
intuitively as the thing that an IRI identifies.

On a few occasions you point out that since this in a W3C RDF WG, we 
should align with RDF specs. I agree that we should use precisely defined 
terms, such as rdfs:Resource, exactly as they are defined. However, we are 
also a W3C WG and we should therefore use informally defined terms, such 
as "resource", in the way that the broader W3C community uses it.

> 
> I think that "RDF representation of an information resource" is not a 
phrase 
> that even has a well-defined meaning.  It could mean the RDF graph that 
is 
> returned under content negotiation when asking for an RDF syntax.

The meaning is defined clearly enough for software engineers by HTTP 
specifications. A resource representation is a possible response body to a 
GET request. An RDF representation is a response whose content type is one 
of the RDF formats. In a well-behaved web application, the specific RDF 
content type should be irrelevant. All RDF content types should 
deserialize to equivalent RDF graphs.

-- Arthur Ryman

Received on Thursday, 29 January 2015 15:17:46 UTC