RE: Resources and URIs

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ext uri-request@w3.org [mailto:uri-request@w3.org]
> Sent: 05 May, 2003 17:50
> To: uri@w3.org
> Subject: RE: Resources and URIs
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 2 May 2003 at 10:55, Patrick.Stickler@nokia.com wrote:
> 
>  > > The only
>  > > thing one can definitively say about a HTTP URI is what 
> it leads to
>  > > upon dereferencing, which, of course, can be a 
> constantly changing
>  > > thing.
>  >
>  > I disagree. The state of the resource denoted by the HTTP 
> URI may be
>  > constantly changing, such that one may never get the same
>  > representation twice. But the denotation should be presumed to be
>  > reasonably static.
> 
> Presumed by whom,

Users.

> and why?  

Because cool URIs don't change.

> I've been "burned" several times by
> having hyperlinks in my own sites to what were relevant documents on
> the Web at the time I linked them, and later finding them to go to
> pornography or other annoying or irrelevant content, usually because
> somebody failed to renew a domain name and it got taken by somebody
> else with a completely different use.

Well, that doesn't invalidate that the denotation of URIs should
be *presumed* to be resonably static.

Presuming it remains static does not mean it will. Only that unless
evidence arises to the contrary, such as in the case you describe
above, one treats a URI as consistently denoting the same thing.

> The lack of persistent meaning for URLs is the reason why URNs were
> created as another form of URI with more persistence.

Fair enough. The presumption of persistent, global and consistent
use of URIs may be more maintainable for URNs than
for URLs, but the presumption is still valid for all URIs. No?

Patrick

Received on Wednesday, 7 May 2003 04:16:02 UTC