- From: Danny Ayers <danny666@virgilio.it>
- Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 11:55:47 +0200
- To: <msabin@interx.com>, <www-rdf-interest@w3.org>
>It's not my position that all URIs need to be disambiguated. My position >is that URIs only have a referent in context, and that sometimes the >context is sufficient to eliminate ambiguity, and sometimes it isn't. >When it isn't it makes sense to add more context. I agree. If locator-rooted URIs aren't regarded as ambiguous without contextual qualification, then the SW won't be interoperable with the existing web. There is also the issue of making people change their habits and comply with whatever the unambiguous definition happens to be for this Looking Glass Web. Ok, if I'm talking about the size of http://www.microsoft.com am I talking about the number of employees or the number of characters on their home page? If I was using a web metrics schema then probably it's the former, if I'm using a commerce schema then it's probably the latter, but it wouldn't be ambiguous because the type (in a semantic sense) of the property would be defined in the schema from which the property comes. This may seem like more work for the agents, but going the other way, if the URI only referred (e.g.) to the web site, then ok, if I want to make assertions about the site then I can use the URI. But if I want to refer to the company, then I have to go up a bnode. I haven't played with this, but I can imagine that to make a lot of statements it might be necessary to chain back a whole load of bnodes, whereas resolving the ambiguity in the namespace of the property doesn't need any. Incidentally, the Semantic Web (as identified by http://www.scientificamerican.com/2001/0501issue/0501berners-lee.html) is now pay-to-view. Cheers, Danny.
Received on Wednesday, 24 April 2002 06:01:38 UTC