Re: Determining what a URI identifies

Larry Masinter wrote:
> Sorry for the length, perhaps I'm repeating myself, but:
> 
> ...
> 
> 
> A simpler design is:
> 
> What a URI determines is defined by the scheme. The definition
> of a URI scheme must include a clear definition of what strings
> that start with that scheme identify. URIs that start with
> "http" identify resources that are accessed via the HTTP protocol,
> using the simple meaning that
>    http://host.example.org/path
> identifies the network resource that one connects to speaking
> the HTTP protocol to host "host.example.org" with path component
> "/path".
> 
> That's simple. You can then go on to say -- given this
> definition of identification -- that URIs are used in some
> contexts to indicate something other than the resource that the
> URI identifies. "Indication" is a different act than "Identification".
> TimBL can use "http://www.w3.org/Consortium" to indicate the
> W3C organization if he likes, and you can make up languages
> in which that is true. But it doesn't change the nature of
> what is actually identified; what's identified is the network
> resource; and use varies.

Please outline the concrete implications of your proposal. What does it 
mean for xmlns, RDF, SAX feature URIs, BEEP profile URIs, etc.?

  Paul Prescod

Received on Monday, 4 November 2002 06:56:37 UTC