Re: URI etymology

> The problem is that SW applications may talk about NS in
> other unpredicetd contexts.

They may talk about URIs in other unpredicted contexts, and I consider
that to be an asset rather than a problem.

   name:example.org/WackyWidget

According to the "one URI, one definition" rule, we can say that
example.org define WackyWidget to be compliant to some government
acessibility requirement. So, according to the definition, the URI
above necessarily identifies a resource which is compliant to some
government accessibility requirement.

   @prefix : <name:example.org/> .
   @prefix : <name:gov.gov/> .

   :WackyWidget :passes gov:Req1A .

But what if the governent then claims that:-

   @prefix : <name:example.org/> .
   @prefix : <name:gov.gov/> .

   :WackyWidget gov:fails gov:Req1A .

So is WackyWidget a resource which is government compliant or not?
It's just a resource. Any other additional information is purely
contextual.

> The last exampes demonstrates the ambiguity I see in identifying
> namespaces with http: URIs: a NS is *not* a generic document,
> and I can get no instance of it whith HTTP. Hence the URI
> identifies 2 things, which is wrong.

What about http://example.com/# - is that a generic document? What
about http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/title - is that a generic
document? I suggest that you dereference it, and once and for all blow
apart your notion that anything on an HTTP server is a document. You
just ask for a URL, you don't tell the server what should be there.

Onto cases where URLs represent both a "namespace" and also return a
document. That document is simply a representation of a resource, not
the resource itself, so is there really any problem there?

--
Kindest Regards,
Sean B. Palmer
@prefix : <http://webns.net/roughterms/> .
:Sean :hasHomepage <http://purl.org/net/sbp/> .

Received on Monday, 11 June 2001 11:21:47 UTC