RE: Proposal: new top level domain '.urn' alleviates all need forurn: URIs

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ext Michael Mealling [mailto:michael@neonym.net]
> Sent: 09 July, 2003 21:41
> To: Sandro Hawke
> Cc: Stickler Patrick (NMP/Tampere); hardie@qualcomm.com; uri@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Proposal: new top level domain '.urn' alleviates all need
> forurn: URIs
> 
> 
> On Wed, 2003-07-09 at 14:35, Sandro Hawke wrote:
> > > > I'm using the word "same" in the normal dictionary 
> sense of being
> > > > truly and completely indistinguishable.  If I tell you <Jim>
> > > > owl:sameAs <James>, then you know I'm using the terms 
> "<Jim>" and
> > > > "<James>" as synonyms, as two names for the same thing.
> > > 
> > > Absolutely correct! _You_ have told me that "Jim" and "James" are
> > > synonymous. But RFC 2396 provides no method for making 
> such statements.
> > 
> > I can put aside the OWL terminology entirely.
> > 
> > You seem to be saying that 
> >     http://www.w3.org/
> > and
> >     http://WWW.w3.org/
> > could not possibly ever both identify the same resource.  
> You seem to
> > be saying that if two URIs are textually different, they cannot
> > possibly identify the same thing.
> 
> It depends on where in Tim's taxonomy of normalization you are. Since
> you deal with the 'http' scheme a lot I assume you can normalize that
> down to something that allows you to compare them via string
> equivalence. If you were in the LDAP world and had no need to 
> know about
> the 'http' scheme then you wouldn't be able to do that scheme specific
> normalization step that would allow you to do that comparison.
> 
> I.e. if I knew nothing about the http scheme then yes, they are
> different URIs and thus different Resources. Remember, I live 
> in a world
> that doesn't understand the 'http' scheme. No 'representations',
> 'redirects', or any other 'http' specific semantics. 

I could accept the assertion that they are different names;
and thereby, have the potential, if not even presumption, 
that they denote different resources.

But I don't accept the assertion that they *cannot* denote
different resources.

And that has nothing whatsoever to do with concepts of representation,
redirect, description, etc.

 
> > If you are saying that, you are making the "unique names assumption"
> > (UNA) for URIs, and living in a world in which RDF and OWL 
> cannot work
> > as currently specified.
> 
> I never said my very simplistic definition of 'sameness' is 
> the only one
> that's allowed. Its simply the only one that's universal. OWL and RDF
> can make statements about degrees of sameness between two URIs all day
> long. They just have to be explicit about doing so....

But you seem to be asserting that co-denotation is prohibited,
not simply possible. There is nothing left for OWL or other
layers to contribute, without coming into direct conflict with
what you appear to be asserting, that lexically distinct URIs
always denote distinct resources.

Patrick

--
Patrick Stickler
Nokia, Finland
patrick.stickler@nokia.com

Received on Thursday, 10 July 2003 09:26:28 UTC