Re: Squaring the HTTP-range-14 circle [was Re: Schema.org in RDF ...]

On 6/13/11 9:59 AM, Christopher Gutteridge wrote:
> The real problem seems to me that making resolvable, HTTP URIs for 
> real world things was a clever but dirty hack and does not make any 
> semantic
> sense.

I think its an ingenious tweak, but easily perceived as a "clever but 
dirty hack".

As you know, the problem with HTTP URI based Names is that they are 
unintuitive. Thus, the entire narrative re. Linked Data should never 
have built solely around use of HTTP scheme based URIs for Names. It 
could have just started with URIs and worked its way toward the benefits 
inherent in using HTTP scheme URIs due to encapsulation of de-reference 
(indirection) and address-of operations. Instead, as I've stated 
repeatedly, we oscillate between use of URI and URL for a concept that 
leverages all aspects of the URI abstraction.

HTTP URI based Names ultimately deliver the least disruptive path of a 
global data spaces of data objects represented by linked data graphs. We 
just need to fix the narrative, and that starts by decoupling the 
concept of Linked Data from RDF. RDF is but an option, if you choose to 
use RDF in a particular way.

> We should use thing://data.totl.net/scooby to refer to the dog and 
> have a convention that http://data.totl.net/scooby will refer to some 
> content about my dog. 

But that won't work in any of today's Web Browsers off the bat. Thus, it 
doesn't solve the need for the transition to be none disruptive to user 
experience.

> This URL can of course then content negotiate as normal. You could 
> also use this in reverse. *thing*://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910554/ is 
> the primary topic of http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910554/

It potentially works one way i.e., introspectively (to a point) from the 
resource at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910554/, if so crafted by the 
publisher. It won't work from the Address bar of a Web Browser. It won't 
work with cURL or wget etc. It just won't work from the client side.




-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	
President&  CEO
OpenLink Software
Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
Twitter/Identi.ca: kidehen