Re: [httpRange-14] What do HTTP URIs Identify?

Tim Berners-Lee wrote,
> The idea that is "inevitable" that people will use the same URI to
> identify different things is true only in that is "inevitable" that
> people will plus 110V appliances into 220V circuits.  That is, they
> can't do it without breaking the protocols.

Perhaps, but then perhaps it's inadvisable to promote a convention which 
will inevitably be violated. If anything, that would penalize those who 
actually do what they're supposed to.

> The Semantic Web is,  *unlike english*, built upon this well-defined
> foundation.   Any suggestion that it is "OK" to just use the same URI
> to denote two different things, or to suggest one has the right in a
> hostile way to claim to define a URI in someone else's space, is to
> break the rules.

One of the reasons we're arguing here now is that the semantic web and 
it's rules don't exist yet (at least, not in any particularly 
significant sense), so current practice can't break them. Proposing 
rules which will collide head on with widespread existing practices 
strikes me a reckless.

> "Er... and how do you disallow identifiers from identifying whatever
> people think they identify?", you ask.
>
> By specifications, darn it!

Where the consumers of those specifications are relatively few in number 
and have comparatively aligned interests this can be made to work (viz. 
the W3C). But the semantic web has considerably grander ambitions and 
the consumers of its specs are (hopefully) considerably more numerous 
and diverse in their interests. Attempting to coral those consumers is 
likely to be about as successful as the Academic Francaise's attempts 
to banish imported anglicisms from French. It would be a shame if the 
W3C ended up looking similarly pompous and preposterous.

Cheers,


Miles

Received on Monday, 5 August 2002 10:27:07 UTC