Resolving rdfms-assertion: media type draft, IRC discussion

Well, I just finished reading an interesting discussion on 
#rdfig on this issue[1], and folks seem to be making it more 
complicated than I think it is, but I hope to provide some ideas 
on where to go. Here's what my Media Type draft says:

"""
Because RDF is a format for semantically-meaningful information, 
it is important to note that transmission of RDF under this 
media type, whether via HTTP, SMTP or some similar protocol, 
means that the sender asserts the content of the RDF document. 
If this is not desirable, such as when a system is forwarding 
RDF written by someone else, another applicable media type, such 
as application/xml or application/octet-stream should be used. 
Also note that RDF provides reification so that RDF statements 
can be sent and discussed without actually being asserted 
themselves.
"""
  - http://blogspace.com/rdf/mimetype
    Media Type for Resource Description Framework (RDF)

Tim Berners-Lee brought up three points which he felt would 
close this issue:

1) The meaning of a document is the conjunction of the meanings 
of its statements.
2) The meaning of a statement is defined by the specification of 
its predicate.
3) The meaning of { :x rdf:type :c} is defined by the rdf:type 
definition which delegates the meaning to the definition of :c .

DanC felt that the meaning Tim meant by "meaning" wasn't shared 
by the rest of the math/science/+ world, but that he at least 
agreed with point 1. In response, Tim said: "The other two I 
declare to be true as director of the consortium. 0.95 ;-)"

;-)

[1] http://ilrt.org/discovery/chatlogs/rdfig/2001-11-16
--
       "Aaron Swartz"      |              The Semantic Web
  <mailto:me@aaronsw.com>  |  <http://logicerror.com/semanticWeb-long>
<http://www.aaronsw.com/> |        i'm working to make it happen

Received on Friday, 16 November 2001 16:12:53 UTC