[ALL] Draft message to TAG re httpRange-14

Hi all,

Here's another attempt at a draft message to the TAG requesting 
clarification on the httpRange-14 resolution, taking into account David 
Booth's comments, and trying to be as concise as possible:

---

1. The class of 'information resources'.

Could the TAG please coin a URI to denote the class of 'information 
resources', and indicate which specifications establish the definition 
of this class.

Could the TAG also list any named classes it believes to be disjoint 
with the class of 'information resources'.

(The rest of this message assumes that such a URI has been coined, and 
uses the name 'tag:InformationResource' as an abbreviation for this URI.)

2. HTTP interactions as assertions.

Is an HTTP response also an assertion?

E.g. if an HTTP server receives the following request:

GET /foo HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com

... and issues the following response:

HTTP/1.x 200 OK

... is this response equivalent to the assertion that the following RDF 
graph (given using Notation 3 syntax) is true:

{
   <http://www.example.com/foo> rdf:type tag:InformationResource.
}

...?

---

I think this is all that's needed for the moment, and hopefully gets to 
the crux of the matter. If the answer to the second point is 'yes', then 
we can follow up and ask about the meaning of other response codes, and 
of the implications for secondary resources given the content-types 
returned; also we can ask more obvious questions such as: what is the 
necessity or inherent value in treating HTTP responses as assertions? 
What kind of application might find it necessary or useful to do so? ... 
But there's no point in asking these questions until the position on 
point (2) is known.

Hopefully an answer to (2) will enable us to develop a clear position 
wrt both RDF/A and PURLs.

What do you think?

-- 
Alistair Miles
Research Associate
CCLRC - Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Building R1 Room 1.60
Fermi Avenue
Chilton
Didcot
Oxfordshire OX11 0QX
United Kingdom
Email: a.j.miles@rl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1235 445440

Received on Thursday, 2 February 2006 17:34:07 UTC