- From: Michael Mealling <michael@neonym.net>
- Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2002 10:53:00 -0400
- To: Bill de hÓra <dehora@eircom.net>
- Cc: "'Jonathan Borden'" <jonathan@openhealth.org>, "'David Orchard'" <dorchard@bea.com>, "'Tim Bray'" <tbray@textuality.com>, "'Norman Walsh'" <Norman.Walsh@Sun.COM>, www-tag@w3.org
On Fri, Sep 20, 2002 at 03:35:49PM +0100, Bill de hÓra wrote: > > Jonathan Borden > > This _entire_ controversy exists simply because the meaning > > of the term > > "resource" is hopelessly overloaded, perhaps "URI" is as well. > > No. A while back a few people on this list asserted that mappings from > URIs to resources are unambiguous. Indeed, this unambiguous mapping is > an axiom of the Web. Tim Bray says different and is prepared to take a > hard line on the matter. The RDF Model Theory says different too, see > below. Hmm... I don't see a difference between these two viewpoints. The system is only made up of two things: a URI and a Resource. A URI can't exist without a Resource and a Resource can't exist without a URI, and the mapping is 1:1 exclusive. Within that system it seems pretty unambiguos. > I don't see the disagreement having anything whatsoever to do with > definitions of resource and URIref, but having everything to do with how > these sets are related. You indicate as much: "Each URIref uniquely and > unambiguously labels the node.". That is where the disagreement lies. But it all comes back to the fact that some prefer to use the term 'resource' to mean a 'a bag of bits' instead of 'the thing that exists when a URI is created'. The first definition of 'resource' exists without any context involving URIs so there is no defined mapping between a URI and that definition, hence it is very ambiguous. I think what Tim Bray is saying is that attempting to use definitions for 'resource' other than 'the thing that is created with a URI is created' is dangerous and not within the realm of provability or usefullness at the architecture level. > > A URIref is a _label_ for a _node_. Each URIref uniquely and > > unambiguously > > labels the node. Not all nodes are required to have labels. > > Nodes may have > > properties and these properties may relate one node to another. > > You could call that model a "Node Description Framework" or NDF for > short. > > As it happens, we have another model called the "Resource Description > Framework" or RDF for short. I know more about the RDF model than the > NDF one, but at first glance it seems there is at least one difference > between the two. In the RDF model, each URIref must be disambiguated. > Thus it is not an axiom of the RDF model that each URIref uniquely and > unambiguously labels a resource, we expect a process to do that work for > us. And, depending on what RDF expects the definition of 'resource' to be, using another process to do that work may have been a mistake... What is RDFs definition of a 'resource'? -MM -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael Mealling | Vote Libertarian! | urn:pin:1 michael@neonym.net | | http://www.neonym.net -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- !! The Trailblazer spacecraft is going to the Moon! And for just $2500 a gram !! !! you can send something along with it! Business cards, momentos, cremains, !!|| anything! See http://www.transorbital.net for details! !!
Received on Friday, 20 September 2002 10:55:19 UTC