Re: URI lifecycle (Was: Owning URIs)

*Very* interesting paper, for the content and for the links.   
Addresses many a topic I've been trying to sort out.

If I may ask for a clarification on a few key points at the beginning:

1) At what point does 'minting' occur?  (a) When I think of the URI,  
(b) when I first write it down as a string in some file, (c) when I  
'serve' it in some formal way, (d) when I make a statement that  
references it, or (e) ...? You define it as 'establishing the  
association between the URI and the resource it denotes', but how does  
the process of establishing that association occur, exactly? It all  
seems a little imprecise with respect to real-world resources.

2) Am I correct in thinking the URI owner is just the person who has  
the authority to create a URI (and optionally provide an initial set  
of statements about it)? In the SW, the idea of someone having the  
"authority" to link their URI to the actual resource -- Earth's moon  
for example -- is confusing, since many people will mint URIs meant to  
refer to the Earth's moon; I think they all have that authority, in  
some sense. (AWWW focused more on the actual URI and information  
resources, where there is an implicit association, often through  
deferencing.)

3) Can you define a "core assertion"?  If I can improve my assertions  
to clarify that I meant the Earth moon we all know about, as opposed  
to some other 'Earth moon', is that not allowed per R1? How do we know  
when an improvement makes the original concept more useful, as opposed  
to erroneous for some users? (Note your suggestion later that "it's OK  
when expectations are properly set", a la SKOS.)

The paper is a nice encapsulation of many of the idiosyncrasies of the  
current state of the social practice. Thanks

John

On May 19, 2009, at 9:02 AM, David Booth wrote:

> FYI, regarding the social responsibilities and expectations involved  
> in
> URI ownership and use, readers may be interested in the following  
> paper
> on "The URI Lifecycle in Semantic Web Architecture":
> http://dbooth.org/2009/lifecycle/
> It is a pre-print from the Identity workshop at the upcoming
> Twenty-first International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
> (IJCAI-09).
>
> Here is the abstract:
> [[
> Various parties are typically involved in the creation and use of a  
> URI,
> including the URI owner, an RDF statement author, and a consumer of  
> that
> RDF statement. What principles should these parties follow, to ensure
> that a consistent resource identity is established and (to the extent
> possible) maintained throughout that URI's lifetime? This paper  
> proposes
> a set of roles and responsibilities for establishing and determining a
> URI's resource identity through its lifecycle.
> ]]
>
> Comments and suggestions are invited, of course.
>
> David Booth
>
>
>
>
>


John

--------------
John Graybeal   <mailto:graybeal@mbari.org>  -- 831-775-1956
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Marine Metadata Interoperability Project: http://marinemetadata.org

Received on Tuesday, 19 May 2009 17:47:38 UTC