- From: Jonathan Borden <jonathan@openhealth.org>
- Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2002 10:26:26 -0400
- To: "Joshua Allen" <joshuaa@microsoft.com>, "Tim Bray" <tbray@textuality.com>, <www-tag@w3.org>
Joshua Allen wrote: > > It is the old "You can't dereference a car" debate. If we say that the > namespace name is the URI for the namespace, it can't also be the URI > for the web page. Because then how would you know what a particular > assertion was talking about? > > For example, the assertion > "http://www.soapware.org/ns/foo dc:creator joe@blogs.com" > > Are we saying that Joe created the namespace, or the web page? Which is > it? It depends, for example: <http://www.soapware.org/ns/foo> rdf:type xml:Namespace . <http://www.soapware.org/ns/foo> dc:creator <joe@blogs.com> . is different from: <http://www.soapware.org/ns/foo> rdf:type doc:Document . <http://www.soapware.org/ns/foo> dc:creator <joe@blogs.com> . that is to say that URIs and URI references can be treated opaquely. What URIs identify is a whole 'nother issue. > > A URI is supposed to be an identifier, and if we say that a URI is the > identifier for any arbitrary number of things, we sabotage the entire > purpose of URIs. Yes but that is an entirely different argument, for example one can say xml:Namespace owl:disjointWith doc:Document . to assert that XML Namespaces and documents are disjoint, i.e. the URI identifies one or the other. One of the main arguments against the use of http: > URLs is that this causes confusion and overloads the concept of > identity. I don't follow how "http:" causes, adds to, or helps solve this problem. > If it is OK to say that an http URL can simultaneously > identify a namespace and a web page, what's to stop someone from saying > that the same URL is also a car and a butterfly? > see above e.g. ex:car owl:disjointWith ex:butterfly . Jonathan
Received on Tuesday, 2 July 2002 10:31:54 UTC