RE: The FragId issue

At 01:32 AM 3/1/03 +0100, Massimo Marchiori wrote:
> > I don't have a formal meaning for "indicate a Web resource with an RDF
> > representation", though I thought the intent was clear enough.  Maybe I
> > should say "identify a Web resource with an RDF representation", or even
> > just "Identify a web resource, which is presumed to have an RDF
> > representation".  (I'll assert that *any* resource has an arbitrary number
> > of RDF representations, so this doesn't create any new constraints.)
>
>Okay, I see, thanks for the clarification. The confusion I had here lies 
>in what the word "presumed" stays for. As you say it, it
>looks like a very weak "presume", i.e.,
>a) it is not an rfc2119 SHOULD, and
>b) it's generally unspecified the way you actually retrieve the "presumed" 
>RDF representation of a resource
>
>Correct?

Yes.  It looks as if an editorial clarification is in order.  (It seems 
that "presumed" can be misleading.)

> > The point about URIs not necessarily being dereferencable as RDF is
> > explicitly addressed:
> > [[
> > eg:someurl#frag means the thing that is indicated, according to the rules
> > of the application/rdf+xml MIME content-type as a "fragment" or "view" of
> > the RDF document at eg:someurl. If the document does not exist, or cannot
> > be retrieved, then exactly what that view may be is somewhat undetermined,
> > but that does not prevent use of RDF to say things about it.
> > ]]
>
>I'm a bit confused, so let me give a use case:
>you use in RDF http//www.example.com/foo.xml#minnie
>You can actually retrieve it, but it's an XML (not RDF) file (so, not with 
>application/rdf+xml).
>So, does this clash with the proposed fragid view?

No clash that I see.  That is, according to the REST model (as I understand 
it), a Web resource can have many different representations.  Browsers that 
deal with different representations use different rules for handling 
fragment identifiers applied to different representations.  RDF does not 
deal specifically with representations, and the fragment identifier 
handling is referred to the rules for a (possibly notional) RDF representation.

>Note this is related to point b) above (if the answer to b is yes, then I 
>think the above usage is fine, and maybe I see what you
>wanted to say :).

I think we're in agreement, then, but I'd like to see if the words couldn't 
be clearer.

If you're happy with the intent as expressed here, I'll take this as a 
matter for editorial clarification.

#g


-------------------
Graham Klyne
<GK@NineByNine.org>
PGP: 0FAA 69FF C083 000B A2E9  A131 01B9 1C7A DBCA CB5E

Received on Tuesday, 4 March 2003 10:20:59 UTC