- From: Roy T. Fielding <fielding@ebuilt.com>
- Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 13:23:24 -0700
- To: Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org>
- Cc: Aaron Swartz <aswartz@upclink.com>, uri@w3.org
> > This seems to imply that URI references (that is, URIs with fragment > > identifiers) are not bound to a resource themselves. > > Careful... it does not imply that URI references are > bound to resources; but nor does it imply that they are *not* > bound to resources. RFC2396 is silent on what > a URI reference is bound to. Eh? It is a resource identifier. It identifies resources. > > Instead, the only > > resource involved is that of the absolute URI itself. > > > > Is this interpretation correct? > > I don't think so; I think you're reading more into RFC2396 > than is there. (you're certainly not the first, and > I don't expect you'll be the last.) No, that is correct. At no time whatsoever is the resource transferred across the network when doing a GET. Only a REPRESENTATION of that resource is transferred, and the fragment refers to a target within the representation and not within the resource. That is why fragments are media-type specific. > > If so, it would have serious consequences > > for many RDF specifications. > > RDF isn't the only spec that extends the domain > of the URI->resource mapping; XLink does too-- > er... it did in earlier drafts... I pointed > that out in a review comment... during last call, > I think; they seem to have changed their mind since then... > > [[[ > The notion of resources is universal to the World Wide Web. [Definition: > As > discussed in [IETF RFC 2396], a resource is any addressable unit of > information or service.] Examples include files, images, documents, > programs, and query results. The means used for addressing a resource is > a URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) reference (described more in 5.4 > Locator Attribute (href)). It is possible to address a portion of a > resource. > ]]] That definition is wrong. So are the definitions used by RDF. That's why they keep having semantic problems with the Web. > Keep in mind that RDF 1.0 was finished Feb 1999, > just a few months after RFC2396 in Aug 1998. It would > seem perfectly reasonable to do an editorial revision > of RDF to make a new term for what RDF 1.0 calls 'resource', > and use 'resource' to mean just what RFC2396 defines > it to mean. Dude, I finished the definition of resource a long time before RFC 2396 was published -- it was in the November 1997 draft. And even that was just a rewording of the "HTTP object model" (now called the REST architectural style) that I was working on back in 1995 during our whiteboard discussions at the W3C. > TimBL went that way in some code he wrote recently; > he uses 'Thing' for the class of things that includes > resources *and* things denoted by absolute-uris-with-fragments: Just shoot me. Its my fault for not sending you guys a copy of my dissertation when I was writing it. I didn't realize that we had diverged so far from a common model. ....Roy
Received on Friday, 11 May 2001 16:26:51 UTC