Re: URI: Name or Network Location?

Also worth noticing the difference between a URI (identifier) and a URL 
(location).
Of course when given something like an ISBN number there is no protocol 
(urn scheme) and it clearly is not a network location but a name.

Tom's summary was nice, I thought.

Jeremy



Thomas B. Passin wrote:

> 
> Stephen K. Rhoads wrote:
> 
>>
>> I am working on an ontology to describe streaming media and find myself
>> unable to get my head around whether a dereferenced URI of a "typed"
>> resource should result in a bit of RDF metadata or the data of the 
>> resource
>> itself.  In other words, is the URI specified as the value of the 
>> rdf:about
>> attribute "just a name", or is it to be interpreted as the "network
>> location" for the data/resource/object itself?
> 
> 
> There have been many threads on this, and a search for them will be 
> useful.  The brief answer is "just a name".... BUT ....
> 
> There are several possibilities -
> 
> 1) The URI is "just a name" BUT conveniently happens to point to some 
> useful information about the URI.  This can be a useful convention.
> 
> 2) The intention is to make a statement about the resource at the 
> dereferencable URI itself.  For example, a statement about the designer 
> of a web page.
> 
> 3) The resource referenced by the URI exists, and contains relevant 
> information that identifies or specifies the thing denoted by the URI.
> 
> The problem is, there is no way in RDF to distinguish between these 
> three cases.  Strictly speaking, the URI is just a name.  The best bet, 
> IMHO, is to use special properties whose objects are dereferenceable 
> URIs, when you want to capture the intent of 2) or 3).  1) is a 
> convention you may want to follow.
> 
> Topic Maps in effect behave like this recommendation.
> 
> So yes, they are "just names".
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Tom P
>

Received on Tuesday, 20 January 2004 02:29:04 UTC