RE: Proposed TAG issue on the boundaries of the Web

If you accept the web is a system on the Internet, 
and that systemic support is what differentiates 
it from other Internet applications, then Fielding 
is right.  It isn't existence, but boundaries that 
are defined.  So far, here and in other forums, 
URI support and standard interface semantics are 
the outstanding boundary features.  Otherwise, 
implementations could not operate in an occasionally 
connected mode and still be considered "on the web". 
However, this means that definitions that require a 
network are flawed without including the notion of 
disconnected operations.  Definitions that depend 
on abstractions such as "information space" are too
weak to be useful.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Moore [mailto:moore@cs.utk.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 7:33 PM
To: Roy T. Fielding
Cc: Keith Moore; Noah Mendelsohn/Cambridge/IBM; Tim Bray; www-tag@w3.org
Subject: Re: Proposed TAG issue on the boundaries of the Web 


> The uniform interface semantics are necessary to differentiate the 
> Web from the Internet.

I agree that there must be some commonality across interfaces.
OTOH, the web's existence does not depend on all interfaces 
to all information services having uniform semantics - only that
there is a significant degree of commonality between operations
that are supported by different information services. 

Keith

Received on Thursday, 11 April 2002 08:53:40 UTC