Re: URGENT: train wreck coming, action needed. (was: Fwd: URI-CG group chartered)

>pat hayes wrote:
>
>>
>>(Im CCing this to people outside the RDF Core WG as the issue is 
>>much larger than just for RDF.  Please be selective in CCing 
>>replies in order to avoid cross-list postings, thanks. -Pat)
>
>
>I'm restricting this to RDF Core.

Yeh, I didnt restrict my last riposte, but I will in future.

>
>
>>
>snip
>>>Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2003 19:30:47 +0100
>>>To: w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org
>>>From: Graham Klyne <gk@ninebynine.org>
>>>Subject: URI-CG group chartered
>
>>>
>>>FYI, the URI CG is now officially chartered.
>>>
>>>   URI Coordination Group
>>>   http://www.w3.org/2001/12/URI/
>>>
>>>"The mission of this group is to coordinate ongoing work in the area of
>>>Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs); to serve as a coordinating body of
>>>all issues involving URIs in the W3C and act as the coordinating body
>>>for URI issues with other groups.
>>>
>>>...
>>>
>>>Back in the mists of 2002, I volunteered to act as RDFcore liaison 
>>>for this group.
>>>
>>>As yet, there's been little activity.  It might be worth noting 
>>>that Roy Fielding is working on a revision to RFC2396 (version 
>>>available at: 
>>>http://www.apache.org/~fielding/uri/rev-2002/rfc2396bis.html).
>>>
>>>The IETF URI BOF (a week or so ago) also had some discussion or IRIs.
>>>
>>>There were a couple of things raised at the IETF meeting that may 
>>>be of relevance to RDFcore:
>>>
>>>(1) a suggestion that "resources" don't exist unless a URI is 
>>>defined for them.  (I raised an objection to this --because we 
>>>have bnodes-- which was somewhat brushed aside with "If RDF has a 
>>>problem with URIs its RDF's problem not URI's problem.  Since the 
>>>matter is more philosophical than of practical import, I don't 
>>>think it's a big deal.)
>>>
>>
>
>
>Pat's objections seem well-taken to me.  But I'd like to describe 
>this from a slightly different perspective (or maybe it's the same 
>perspective, but a different vocabulary).  If I take the "Semantic 
>Web is making the Web like a giant database" analogy, it seems to me 
>that saying that a resource doesn't exist (in the Web) unless a URI 
>is defined for it is like saying that a resource doesn't exist (in a 
>database) unless there's a row for it:  say, in a "Resources" table. 
>Or if you like more specific examples, saying that a Person doesn't 
>exist unless there's a URI defined for it is like saying that a 
>Person doesn't exist unless there's a row defined for it in the 
>database's Person table.  Among other things, this seems like the 
>mother of all closed world assumptions.

Right, and I think it is the same basic point. Things like OWL make 
it even more acute, though, since there you can *prove* that things 
exist that you have no URI for. So I guess it would follow that their 
URI exists even though you don't know what it is, which even if true 
isn't much actual use.

Pat


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Received on Friday, 4 April 2003 19:33:19 UTC