RE: Resources and URIs

I agree that there are some issues concerning URIs.  Among these are
persistence when a resource changes ownership (currently "solved" by moving
the URL; which not everyone approves of ;-) ); and dealing with multiple
instances of a resource (same content at two or more locations).  However,
isn't this the issue to be dealt with by the newly announced (at W3C AC in
November) W3C URI Interest Group?  I suggest the discussion of URIs belongs
there not on the RDF list, though obviously related?

-----Original Message-----
From: R.van.Dort@Everest.nl [mailto:R.van.Dort@Everest.nl]
Sent: 07 December 1999 18:29
To: www-rdf-interest@w3.org
Subject: Resources and URIs


I see a number of messages indicating participants struggling with URI
generation.

I think we should not worry too much about all URI problems.

A URI serves for addressing.
In my opinion there are two kinds of addressing 'ranges': let's call 'em
private and public.

When fooling around in your own address space (your program, your local
document) anything will do as long as you can resolve
all your local addressing. Let us call this the 'local process' space.
You may have a Java program manipulating some local model: why bothering
about URIs when nobody else can access your memory space?
Or you may generate an RDF document that serves as a message between two
processes, why bothering to make the ID's of the
transmitted resources globally unique? Just call them URI1, URI2 and URI3 as
long as the receiver can identify them within the message.

It's another matter when your resources get public: the addressing takes
place in a global namespace.
That's when it gets serious. This applies to the 'global persistent' space
only.
Let us focus on that problem.

Is it still a different problem than creating unique URLs now?

Received on Wednesday, 8 December 1999 04:39:48 UTC