RE: web proper names

> I don't see the point in only having an RDDL representation (why not
> have an RDF representation too). Right now we have this hypothetical URI
> being used in hypothetical RDF triples. Get some hypothetical RDF there
> first, worry about hypothetical RDDL later!
 
	The RDDL representations would be easy to build and allow
comparison of "things". The very idea of a "referent" or a "thing"
is a bit problematic - while I agree an RDF predicate denoting that would
be good, we're going to go right up against one of the largest problems
with all knowledge representation systems, SW included - how to know
if what I mean by my "thing" is the same as what you mean? My definition
of "Great Books" will probably differ from yours, but aren't bound
books, including "great books", in a library a resource that can be given 
a URI? And maybe I might give it a URI and you might give it another URI?
How do we tell if our URIs are different, the same, or similar if 
there is no WPN or some other mechanism?  

> > 
> > What people actually do is this:
> > <http://www.w3.org/People/thompson/> 
> > <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/creator>
> > "Henry Thompson" 
> > 
> > But you cannot make many meaningful statements about the string "Henry
> > Thompson" since it doesn't have a URI.
> 
> You can make plenty of meaningful statements containing the string
> "Henry Thompson". 

But you cannot disambiguate whether it's Henry Thompson at Edinburgh/W3C
or Henry Thompson at Auburn. See note above.

> A machine doesn't know that there are any pages or any men. However in
> the following:
 
> <http://www.hackcraft.net/foaf/>
> <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type>
> <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Document> .
> <http://www.hackcraft.net/foaf/> <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/maker>
> <http://www.hackcraft.net/jon/> .
> <http://www.hackcraft.net/jon/>
> <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type>
> <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Person> .

Now make the concept of "www.hackcraft.net/jon/" interoperable with 
someone, say a me, who is using "www.ibiblio.org/hhalpin/jon" to refer to 
you. And pretend we don't know each other :) How is a machine going to 
discover that sameAs unless someone tells it that?

> This bit boggles me. Why do we want to be RDF-neutral?
	Actually, we could serialize a EWPN as a RDF. However, there
may be other Web-based logical schemes, and a EWPN has uses (such
as improved bookmarks) beyond RDF. See Part 6, near end of paper. 
	
> If you can so how it can be done using HTML then I'd say "sure, we don't
> need a new technology". If you can so how RDF can't do it I'd say "sure,
> we need a new technology". As it is you're ignoring a technology in
> place which works close to the deepest roots of web architecture (URIs)
> and inventing a new one. Or a new URI scheme; which in practice means
> either using a new technology (that can dereference or otherwise act on
> the URIs) or using the URIs thereof in RDF in which it won't matter two
> hoots what the scheme is.

	What I'm saying is that the general conceptual distinction between 
referent/thing and representation (which are both resources) can be 
embodied in HTML, RDF, a new URI scheme....whatever. That's why
we didn't propose WPN as one of those in particular, but as a concept
which can be realized in any of those forms. Thus Part 4, WPN 
specification, was done being neutral as possible to technology. But,
yes, I agree - let's have some RDF predicates which make this distinction
clear.

				-Harry

Received on Monday, 20 September 2004 21:29:53 UTC