Re: ISSUE-5 Definition of Resource

On 1/29/15 7:07 AM, Arthur Ryman wrote:
> "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.

I'll add the entire library and cultural heritage community to this. We 
have "cultural heritage resources"*, "bibliographic resources", "library 
resources", "information resources". When we talk about what the 
metadata (yes, we call it metadata) is "about", it's about a resource. 
Of course, these are folks who will never speak about "rdfs:Resource" -- 
they are a good couple of layers above the code, and don't even know 
that rdfs:Resource exists.

We can't eliminate this natural language word from our vocabulary. We 
just need to make sure we keep our contexts clear.

kc

* We also have "cultural heritage object" - CHO - defined in an 
ontology, and it's not the object of the triple.


>
> 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
>
>
>

-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet/+1-510-984-3600

Received on Thursday, 29 January 2015 15:39:20 UTC