Re: Proposed issue: What does using an URI require of me and my software?

---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2003 18:36:22 +0100
>From: Graham Klyne <GK@ninebynine.org>  
>Subject: Re: Proposed issue: What does using an URI require of me and   
my software?  
>To: public-sw-meaning@w3.org
>
>
>At 11:00 23/09/03 -0400, Bijan Parsia wrote:
>>The main line is "that use of a URI in RDF implies a commitment to its 
>>ontology".
>
>Er, what does it mean for a URI to have an ontology?

Good question. "Whatever the URI's owner officially designates as the 
defining ontology for that URI" is the URI's ontology, in my parlance. I take 
the intended default to be "that ontology that's published at the URI formed 
by stripping off the hash from a URIref".

>I originally read that statement loosely as meaning something like "Using 
>the URI in RDF is to make statements about what the owner of the URI 
claims 
>it to identify".  

See Pat's claims that this kind of separation doesn't work for concepts and 
relations.

Plus, your reading seems pointless. Operationally, what does it affect?

> By this, using a URI *formally* means nothing.

My understanding, both from looking at the text (see my earlier reading) 
and from conversation, is that this is not the case.

I don't see how to read "committment to an ontology" in this context that 
*doesn't* have an effect on the formal meaning.

I mean, really, what does this "identify what the URI claims it identifies" 
*mean*? Is it even true?

Cheers,
Bijan Parsia.

Received on Tuesday, 23 September 2003 14:50:30 UTC