- From: Charles F. Munat <chas@munat.com>
- Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 00:28:54 -0700
- To: "RDF Interest" <www-rdf-interest@w3.org>, "RDF Logic" <www-rdf-logic@w3.org>
Pierre-Antoine Champin wrote: >> Though, URLs are frequently used to identify resources, either the one >> they locate or another one. >> This makes them tricky and unreliable as identifiers. Aaron Swartz replied: > I'm a bit confused -- what would be a resource that they located but didn't > identify? Consider a URI used to identify a resource not retrievable over the Internet. Say, Aaron Swartz. Unless we quickly invent a Star Trek-like transporter system that works over wires, fiber optics, or radio waves, there is no way for me to retrieve Aaron Swartz or even a copy of him over the Internet. So if I assign the URL/URI http://people.com/AaronSwartz to Aaron Swartz, that may serve to *identify* Aaron Swartz, but it does not locate him. At best it locates a description of Aaron. Thus http://people.com/AaronSwartz might serve as the identifier for Aaron Swartz, and as the identifier AND locator for the description of Aaron Swartz, but it cannot serve as the locator for Aaron Swartz because Aaron Swartz IS NOT ON THE INTERNET AND PROBABLY NEVER WILL BE. Put another way, http://ideals.com/JUSTICE might serve as an identifier for the concept of justice, but does it *locate* justice? I think not (though I wish it were that easy to find justice in this world). As I mentioned in an earlier post, the question is, Do we need identifiers for non-retrievable items such as concepts, people, etc. or do we really only need to identify descriptions and other resources that are retrievable over the Internet? Hell, I don't know. You tell me. Sincerely, Charles F. Munat Seattle, Washington
Received on Thursday, 12 April 2001 03:30:53 UTC