- From: Renato Golin <renato@ebi.ac.uk>
- Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 13:35:54 +0100
- To: Ioachim Drugus <sw@semanticsoft.net>
- CC: John Black <JohnBlack@kashori.com>, Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@w3.org>, Richard Cyganiak <richard@cyganiak.de>, Jacek Kopecky <jacek.kopecky@deri.org>, Bernard Vatant <bernard.vatant@mondeca.com>, semantic-web@w3.org
Ioachim Drugus wrote: > 1. To distinguish information from data, I follow the principle: > Information = Data + Interpretation. > Without a content-type I cannot interpret the data - therefore, what > comes without a content-type is not information. I believe, in web > Architecture, by content type they made a perfect distinction between > data and information. Hi Joe, Data contains information that can be extracted in several different ways depending on the context (as you said it yourself) BUT the content-type is only one of many different contexts. Other contexts that could apply are domain name, geographical location, protocol used, etc. Internal data can also change the context, even if your content-type is different. If you rename a GIF file to JPG it'll still be a GIF and will open as a GIF on most programs. In this case, the header inside the file is what tells what the file really is. Content-type is in HTTP protocol and not in RDF or HTML so even if you serve a HTML file with content-type "text/plain" a browser can still be able to read, interpret the HTML and render a web page for you without problems. In a nutshell: I *can* interpret data without content-type but I *cannot* without at least one kind of context (including content-type), be it internal or external to the file. cheers, --renato -- Reclaim your digital rights, eliminate DRM, learn more at http://www.defectivebydesign.org/what_is_drm
Received on Thursday, 28 June 2007 12:37:27 UTC