- From: Bill de hÓra <dehora@eircom.net>
- Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 00:03:21 +0100
- To: "'Joshua Allen'" <joshuaa@microsoft.com>, "'Bullard, Claude L \(Len\)'" <clbullar@ingr.com>, "'Tim Bray'" <tbray@textuality.com>, "'Lucas Gonze'" <lgonze@panix.com>
- Cc: <www-tag@w3.org>
> On Behalf Of Joshua Allen > > Problem: a few people, including media and possibly political > decision-makers, have become confused about some very basic > principles. > > Solution: Reiterate the principles. Ideal solution: kill the surfing metaphor. > 1) A URL is given to a page so that people can hyperlink > globally and directly to it. All URIs are... URIs. We don't have okey-dokey-RIs and you-can't-remember-this-RIs, it-depends-on-who-you-are-RIs or it-depends-on-our-business-model-RIs. A URI is in a global namespace, period. Unfortunately, cue defences that ape the Namespaces rationale: you can't link to this because it's not a URI, it just has the syntax of a URI; where 'link' strongly implies memoize for later download. > 3) If someone does not want a page to be linked globally or > directly, that is fine. Nobody forces them to give the page a URL. Yes. > 4) By design and in practice, assigning a URL to a web page > is a contract with the world which says "please hyperlink to me". No. Say you are invited to retrieve a representation. Hyperlinking is muddied with the surfing metaphor. > 5) This contract can be revoked at any time by a page owner. How? The revocation cannot be enforced without force of law, if even that. The web by definition doesn't provide backlinks. > 6) If a person wishes to provide content in a manner that > does not involve direct and global linking, there are plenty > of options available besides URLs. Yes, and I'd take a harder line. If a person wishes to provide content in a manner that does not involve the implications of the URI, there are options other than the Web. The TAG as I recall accepted a few months back that having a URI put something on the Web. regards, Bill de hÓra
Received on Thursday, 25 July 2002 19:04:41 UTC