Re: Fwd "a comment on NFC"

I personalise sympathise with this - there are potential SW frauds that 
could be executed using non-normalized text.

Jeremy

Francois Yergeau wrote:

> Brian McBride wrote:
> 
>>I wonder if we might look at it this way.  Lets be careful who we are 
>>talking to with these two statements.  I suggest they are 
>>targetted at different audiences, and are compatible.
>>
> 
> There's a more abstract notion behind the statements: un-normalized data is
> evil.  It has serious interop and security implications.
> 
> Analogy: stealing is evil.
> 
> 
>>When we say literal strings SHOULD be in NFC we are speaking 
>>to creators 
>>of RDF data saying you SHOULD create RDF literal strings that 
>>are in NFC 
>>(but MAY NOT, if "the full implications must be understood 
>>and carefully weighed).
>>
> 
> We tell visitors to a store: "Thou shalt not steal".
> 
> 
>>When we say that implementations SHOULD accept literal 
>>strings that are 
>>not in NFC we are talking to implementors who can rely on the 
>>creators 
>>of the RDF that is not in NFC to have made a sensible choice, but who 
>>MAY refuse to process it if they think they know better.
>>
> 
> Does the store owner tell his employees to trust all visitors, even those
> who appear to go out with stuff they haven't paid.  I think not.
> 
> 
>>Does that fly?
>>
> 
> I'm afraid not.  Early-normalization cannot work without verification.
> Therefore SHOULD check and SHOULD NOT accept un-normalized text.  You may
> have valid reasons to trust the sender, OK, we have SHOULDs and we even have
> specific language about "certified text" in Charmod.  But the basic idea is
> it's evil, don't do it and catch it when you can.
> 
>

Received on Friday, 3 October 2003 05:20:52 UTC