Re: Principal term choice - Was: Re: Identity interoperability

I agree that using the word Principal in the WebID spec is something that I am 
ambivalent about. It is useful in the Interoperation document, because that is 
where the confusions about Principals need to be resolved. Given that...

On 20 Nov 2012, at 17:45, Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com> wrote:

> On 11/20/12 10:50 AM, Henry Story wrote:
>> Notice that these definitions always speak of the "Principal resource".
>> Those are  2 words. You have the Principal which is the string, and the
>> principal resource which is the document  which we call the WebID Profile
>> in the case of WebID. Java allows public keys to be principals, and it
>> is not clear there what the resource is on the web for it.
> 
> If the principal is a string,

If you read my message a bit further you'll have noticed that I moved on
to say that a principal is something that is constructed from a string.
So I do agree that it is not a string. 

> and the "principal resource" a chunk of data
> then end product is simply this:
> a string that denotes the chunk of data. And by de-reference the string can used as a mechanism to get you to a representation of the data (its values).
> 
> When the string is used in a specific system e.g., URI abstraction,

I know what a URI is, I don't know what a URI abstraction is. 
It is a good writing policy to remove words from your sentences
that don't contribute to the meaning of what you are saying. 
It is only bad marketeers that do this.

> you end up with a denotation mechanism that *automagically* resolves to data.

I don't know about magic. Is that a new OpenLink product? If so this
is not the forum for doing sales pitches. 

> Example if the string is a URL and the system in question is the Web.
> 
> At then end of all of this we are going to be left with the following:
> 
> 1. Principal and Principal Resource -- a word and a phrase that will open up their own can of worms since most won't take the time to look at your interop document.

I do lean towards thinking that the word Principal does not have its place
in the WebID spec.

> 2. Inference -- should reasoning be a MUST or SHOULD when implementing a WebID over TLS based verifier?

The WebID-TLS spec does not mention reasoning I think.

> 
> Object identity and its effects on equivalence by name or value is old subject matter that's easy to understand without any SPARQL examples when explaining the effects of owl:sameAs and inverseFunctionalProperty entity relationship semantics.

I was just using SPARQL in my mail as a way of linking functional and declarative thinking.

> 
> In an attempt to make things simple, for the inattentive, we are heading in the opposite direction, unfortunately.

My explanation was not intended to go into the spec. It was just me trying to develop 
my ( our ) understanding of how the notion of Principal seems to work.

> 
> Links:
> 
> 1. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~clamen/OODBMS/Manifesto/htManifesto/node4.html -- Object Identity .
> 
> -- 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Kingsley Idehen	
> Founder & CEO
> OpenLink Software
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> 
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> 

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