Re: What are proper URIs for RDF representations of real existing content

Mark,

On 3 Apr 2008, at 17:44, Mark Diggory wrote:
> My question is, When referring to a thing in DSpace I'd like my  
> URL's to be Cooler. I'd like to be able to use them as my resource  
> id's, I got allot of Pushback for doing this by some in the ORE  
> community because they expect the URI to point at actual RDF  
> instances, not accidentally resolve the "real existing content"...

HTML and RDF/XML are just two different document formats. Claiming  
that one is the “real existing content” while the other is just  
“metadata” is silly in my eyes, this is being stuck in a pre-Web  
mindset. HTML and RDF/XML are just different formats for encoding the  
same information.

Serving different document formats from the same URI (content  
negotiation) has been a feature of the basic Web protocols for many,  
many years.

> Because I feel this is a description of that resource, not a  
> description of a description of the resource. I'd like to be able to  
> say...
>
>> <rdf:RDF ... >
>>    <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://dspace-test.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/36383 
>> ">
>>        <dc:creator>Abelson, Harold</dc:creator>
>>        <dc:creator>Zittrain, Jonathan</dc:creator>
>> 	<ore:describes rdf:resource="http://dspace-test.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/36383#aggregation 
>> "/>
>>    </rdf:Description>
>>    <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://dspace-test.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/36383#aggregation 
>> ">
>>        <ore:aggregates rdf:resource="...."/>
>>        <ore:aggregates rdf:resource="...."/>
>>    </rdf:Description>
>> </rdf:RDF>

This looks good to me.

> But, doing this requires that the tool resolving be crossing 303  
> redirects or parsing HTML and extracting the location of the RDF  
> from there, otherwise they always resolve to the HTML rather than  
> the RDF whenever attempting to follow the URI.  Can anyone recommend  
> what a best practice would be in this case?

Not sure I understand the problem. RDF-aware tools need to send a  
proper Accept header anyways or they won't get any RDF out of many  
Semantic Web sites. And practically all Web tools follow redirects  
transparently unless you explicitly tell them not to.

I would actually propose this slightly different setup:

/handle/1721.1/36383 serves either HTML or RDF/XML, based on the  
Accept header (content negotiation), directly without a redirect.

/handle/1721.1/36383.html serves only HTML.

/handle/1721.1/36383.rdf serves only RDF/XML.

This is the approach described here: http://www.w3.org/TR/cooluris/#hashuri 
  .

Richard



>
>
> -Mark
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Mark R. Diggory - DSpace Developer and Systems Manager
> MIT Libraries, Systems and Technology Services
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology
>
>
>
>
>
>

Received on Thursday, 3 April 2008 17:43:45 UTC