RE: Summary of the QName to URI Mapping Problem

Thank you Devon. You've paraphrased my concerns exactly. And I
also am quite confused that so many folks think this is a non-issue.

Patrick

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ext Devon Smith [mailto:devon@taller.pscl.cwru.edu]
> Sent: 16 August, 2001 17:38
> To: www-rdf-interest@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Summary of the QName to URI Mapping Problem
> 
> 
> 
> i'm confused.
> mostly by how people are able to completely dismiss patrick's 
> concerns.
> 
> he is completely on target.
> 
> maybe he just isn't stating his case in terms y'all can understand.
> perhaps a paraphrase will help. (apologies to patrick if i 
> misparaphrase)
> 
> QName -> URI mappping is broken because
> 
> 1) 
> 	possibility of URI collsion.
> 	
> 	person a maintains namespace 'urn:abc' and has a 
> property defined
> 	in that space called 'xyz'.
> 	person b maintains namespace 'urn:ab' and has a property defined
> 	in that space called 'cxyz'.
> 
> 	so, when each gets serialized to 'XML', they look something like
> 	this, respectively:
> 	abc:xyz
> 	ab:cxyz
> 	
> 	and this becomes a problem when the RDF processor does 
> it's concat
> 	maneuver and gets two identical URIs for two different 
> properties.
> 
> 	this really looks like a problem to me. 
> 	if it's not, someone will have to explain why it isn't.
> 
> 2)
> 	URI scheme where concat doesn't make sense.
> 	
> 	person a maintains namespace urn:abc(foo).
> 	names within the space are formed like urn:abc(foo(bar)).
> 	
> 	now, there are two possibilities for QName construction here.
> 	either we seperate the name from the namespace and get
> 	'xmlns:foo=urn:abc(foo)' and 'foo:bar'
> 	or we just cut off some random suffix and get something like
> 	'xmlns:foo=urn:abc(foo(' and 'foo:bar))'
> 
> 	now, the latter allows, theoretically, for correct URI 
> reconstruction,
> 	but i don't think too many XML parsers i going to like it.
> 
> 	and the former is accepted by parsers, but doesn't 
> allow for correct
> 	URI reconstruction, because urn:abc(foo)bar is not the 
> correct URI.
> 
> 	again, this seems like a problem. 
> 	sure, the spec implicitly says that properties have to be of the
> 	kind that allow for the concat maneuver, but a) that kind of
> 	restriction seems like a bad idea in the long term, and 
> b) should
> 	be stated explicitly if that's the intention.
> 
> again, i apologize if i've misrepresented what patrick has said.
> i hope this helps, but doubt it will.
> 
> devon smith
> smithde@oclc.org
> 
>

Received on Thursday, 16 August 2001 12:40:21 UTC