Re: ungetable http URIs

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   Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2003 10:42:19 -0500 (EST)
   From: Nick Matsakis <matsakis@mit.edu>
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   On Mon, 1 Dec 2003, Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:

   >> I think things that don't meet those requirements should get ungetable
   >> URIs.

   > What kind of URIs wouldn't meet those requirements, IMO? [not caustic,
   > just curious]

   I think its generally pretty clear whether things can be expressed as bits
   or not.  JPEG image? bits. Oil painting on canvas? not bits.  There are
   some digital artifacts whose bits are constantly changing or even never
   the same, such as websites, but those are still bits (in fact, HTTP
   can provide metadata for those bits that lets you know whether they are
   static or dynamic).  I don't have any objection to things that can be
   expressed as bits being given gettable URIs, even if they are not
   available at those URIs.

I'd go the other way around.  Whether or not the object being referred
to is bits, we should give it a URL if and only if we expect to
respond with something "useful" when queried about that URL.

Exactly what we respond with doesn't matter so much.  Indeed, I could
imagine that ultimately HTTPs "content negotiation" evolves into a
more general protocol for negotiating what information can be pulled
from a URL.

   The other fringe case is internal nodes in RDF data structures.  I'm not
   sure what the current consensus on this is, but on systems that implement
   b-nodes they can be blank, and not have any URI.  If, for some reason,
   they do need URIs assigned, then I think ungettable ones would be
   appropriate.

Yes.

Received on Thursday, 4 December 2003 16:21:01 UTC