Re: Cool URIs for the Semantic Web

Hi Giovanni,

In addition to (or rather, re-iterating) what Lars said:

On 6 Mar 2007, at 13:55, Giovanni Tummarello wrote:
> In my understanding you're creating an overview of several  
> methodology so the idea is a fair comparison between approaches. If  
> that is the purpose i object that your treatment of the "other"  
> methods is way too biased, as a result of you chosing basic design  
> principles which are arguable at least.

The article is not meant to be an overview or comparison of several  
approaches. It presents the approach that we (Leo, Max and I) think  
is best. It is biased -- towards using existing Web standards  
wherever possible.

> I personally see absolutely nothing wrong with identifiers such as  
> ISBN:123-123-1233 or MD5: 998798798 or   
> TAG:giovanni.tummarello@deri.org/mycat/CHICCA.

There's nothing wrong with these identifiers, but there is a  
limitation: You can't put them into your browser or cURL or your  
favourite programming language's URL.open() function or any other  
place that resolves URIs and expect it to return something useful. We  
think this matters.

> Why should i better use an amazon page for a book than the simple  
> ISBN (then you chose you preferred store? Why sohuld i use a URL to  
> indicate me, then i might loose the DNS domain for some reasona and  
> have a spammer putting immoral binaries as a resolution of my  
> "identifier".

Yes, the risk of your domain falling into the wrong hands is real.  
Please propose an alternate system -- I bet it will have similar  
risks (account theft etc), but we wouldn't have twenty years of  
experience dealing with it.

> In fact i see many obvious advantages of these, in terms of  
> stability, neutrality, maintainance, etc.
> but in SOME CASES. In some others its ok to mix identifiers with  
> reppresentations.
>
> there is, in my view, not a single way to do identifier but one has  
> to see per domain and the choices are more than what are written in  
> that document.

Yes, I can't disagree, domain-specific solutions can be better. Think  
of our one-size-fits-all approach as a default solution that works  
reasonably well across domains, and should be used in the absence of  
an existing better solution for your specific domain or application.

> To conclude.. what about making it a wiki page?

I'd rather read separate, self-contained, concise and well-argued  
cases for using the other approaches.

> If not, what about making it a blog post so there can be hints of  
> counterargument in a world readable way? :-)

Please feel free to use my announcement blog post here. It already  
has attracted some entertaining flames ;-)
http://dowhatimean.net/2007/03/uri-questions

All the best,
Richard


> Related issue: There might be some space for spontaneous  
> discussions/lightening talks at the W3C workshop I3 Identity,  
> Identifiers, Identification  http://okkam.dit.unitn.it/i3/ , if  
> anyone would like to book a space for it please let me know, i cant  
> guarantee at this time (the program has not been finalized) but  
> we'll likely reserve some space about it
>
> Giovanni
>
>
>
> On 3/5/07, Leo Sauermann < leo.sauermann@dfki.de > wrote:
...
>
> Read it
> http://www.dfki.uni-kl.de/~sauermann/2006/11/cooluris/ (html)
> http://www.dfki.uni-kl.de/dfkidok/publications/TM/07/01/ 
> tm-07-01.pdf (PDF version)
>
> Abstract
> The Resource Description Framework RDF allows you to describe web  
> documents and resources from the real world—people, organisations,  
> things—in a computer-processable way. Publishing such descriptions  
> on the web creates the semantic web. URIs are very important as the  
> link between RDF and the web. This article presents guidelines for  
> their effective use. We discuss two strategies, called 303 URIs and  
> hash URIs. We give pointers to several web sites that use these  
> solutions, and briefly discuss why several other proposals have  
> problems.

Received on Tuesday, 6 March 2007 17:21:57 UTC