Re: The "info" URI Scheme

Le mercredi, 1 oct 2003, à 12:26 America/Montreal, Hammond, Tony 
(ELSLON) a écrit :
> The same thing with URI dereferenceability: URIs do not have to be
> dereferenceable: Get over it!

Quite true... But if there's a possibility of deferenceability of URLs 
in URI. Some people will do. As you I don't get the necessity of info: 
scheme, specifically if you compare it to urn:

My problem with deferenceable URIs in the semantic Web is that it could 
cause harm to the whole semantic Web in some circumstances. I would 
rather prefer they are not deferenceable alltogether and at all.

<URI> is a label, reference, etc... (choose a name) which is generic 
for the use and the context of your work or community. The problem is 
that you have some URIs like http URLs which are deferenceable, and 
gives the possibility to have something at the end of it.

	http://[domain name]/whatever/path/

the domain name can be bought by another party, the domain name is 
owned by someone, etc.

Why it's a problem?

Practices: Some people might find useful to put something at the end, 
for example we can imagine that the Web community decides to put 
documents (in RDF) that will make sense at the end of this URL. If the 
practice spread, it can be misussed and/or abused. Someone using an 
ontology will have suddenly a software that will not work because the 
expected thing at the end has changed, even if the practice is not in 
the spec. (I remind that tables in HTML were not created for layout, 
but it has been the case). So even in the spec, if you say that URIs 
MUST not be deferenceable, some people will do.

I would rather prefer a system, where URIs for semantic Web are not 
tied to a deferenceable object.

A kind of example is for "words" in natural language (Semantic Web 
URI), they are not owned by people, so they are not dependent in their 
use from someone (except when using TM brands as common names) BUT you 
can find definition of these words in multiple dictionaries 
(Ontologies) private, commercial or public.


	


--
Karl Dubost - http://www.w3.org/People/karl/
W3C Conformance Manager
*** Be Strict To Be Cool ***

Received on Thursday, 2 October 2003 09:05:51 UTC