Re: a URI is a name (tel uri scheme and VCARD RDF)

Alexander,

This is actually one of the axioms of Topic Maps [1].
In my RDF Topic Maps attempts [2] I am defining two RTM properties:

<daml:UnumbiguousProperty rdf:ID="indicatedBy">
 <rdfs:subPropertyOf
rdf:resource="http://www.daml.org/2001/03/daml+oil#TransitiveProperty"/>
 <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="#topic"/>
 <rdfs:range rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#Resource"/>
 <rdfs:comment>Subject Indicating Resource</rdfs:comment>
</daml:UnumbiguousProperty>

<daml:UnumbiguousProperty rdf:ID="constitutedBy">
 <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="#topic"/>
 <rdfs:range rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#Resource"/>
 <rdfs:comment>Subject Constituting Resource</rdfs:comment>
</daml:UnumbiguousProperty>

So that I can say in one document:

<rdf:Description rdf:ID="w3c">
  <rtm:indicatedBy rdf:resource="http://www.w3c.org"/>
</rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description rdf:ID="w3cwebsite">
  <rtm:constitutedBy rdf:resource="http://www.w3c.org"/>
</rdf:Description>

[1] http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/
[2] http://www.cogx.com/swglasses.html

--Nikita.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alexander Jerusalem" <ajeru@vknn.org>
To: "Paul Prescod" <paul@prescod.net>; "Richard H. McCullough"
<rhm@cdepot.net>
Cc: "Doug Ransom" <doug.ransom@alumni.uvic.ca>; <www-rdf-interest@w3.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 24, 2002 3:55 PM
Subject: Re: a URI is a name (tel uri scheme and VCARD RDF)


>
> I'm not sure if the following is of any relevance for this thread but your
> discussion reminds me of a question I have always had regarding RDF:
>
> URIs, it seems to me, are used in two completely different ways: On the
one
> hand they are just unique names for something. On the other hand they are
> used to point to something and provide a kind of processing instruction
> that allows us to physically retrieve the thing it points to. Now when we
> talk about someone's homepage for example, I don't think it is appropriate
> to use the URL that allows us to physically retrieve the homepage as the
> unique name of the homepage. The two roles should be strictly separated.
> The reason is that I could have made a lot of statements about the
homepage
> that use this URI as a unique name, that is as their subject. The physical
> address, however, can change.
>
> So even for internet resources, I think we should have one URI to name it
> and another one to point at it, even if the two happen to have the same
> sequence of characters at any one point in time.
>
>
>
> At 14:48 24.11.2002 -0800, Paul Prescod wrote:
>
> >Richard H. McCullough wrote:
> >
> >>I followed the link at the bottom of this email, and read Sean B.
> >>Palmer's interesting essay on URIs.
> >
> >I'm not clear on your opinion of Doug's proposal. ;) But you did change
> >the subject line so I guess we'll treat this as a new thread.
> >
> >>For example, if we want to talk about Linus Torvalds in the context of
> >>URIs & RDFS, we might have three different somethings that we need three
> >>different names for:
> >>
> >>     Linus Torvalds the person
> >>     a document that contains RDFS statements that describe facts about
> >> Linus Torvalds
> >>     a graph that contains nodes and links that describe facts about
> >> Linus Torvalds
> >>
> >>My impression, based on a few RDF-interest emails, is that much
confusion
> >>has been generated by trying to use one URI when three URIs are
required.
> >
> >I think that you misunderstand the debate. It is easy to make up three
> >URIs for Linus Torvalds or ten (let's not forget his home page and email
> >address and ...). The question is whether the syntactic form of the URI
> >restricts whether it refers to him, or his home page or the graph or ...
> >
> >Seth says:
> >
> > >  Linus Torvalda the person
> > >    http://foo/#LinusTorvalds
> > >  a documdent that contains RDFS statements that describe facts about
> > > Linus Torvalds
> > >    http://foo/
> > >  a graph that contains nodes and links that describe facts about
> > Linus > Torvalds
> > >    http://foo/#ThisGraph
> >
> >But an equally consistent position is:
> >
> >Linus Torvalds the person
> >
> >     http://foo/LinusTorvalds
> >
> >   a docudent that contains RDFS statements that describe facts about
> > Linus Torvalds
> >
> >     http://foo/LinusTorvaldsInRDF
> >
> >   a graph that contains nodes and links that describe facts about Linus
> > Torvalds
> >
> >     http://foo/LinusTorvaldsGraph
> >
> >Insofar as RDF care NEITHER about the syntax of the URI _nor_ the data
> >referred to by the URI, why should WE care? Why impose a syntactic
> >convention at all? RDF offers me ways of saying that InRDF is the RDF
> >representation and Graph is the graph representation of the LinusTorvalds
> >concept. If Seth wants to use his convention then he can, but he should
> >also use RDF statements to make explicit the relationship.
> >
> >  Paul Prescod
>
>
>

Received on Monday, 25 November 2002 08:41:12 UTC