RE: [metadataInURI-31] (was Second Draft of summary of TAG issue abstractComponentRefs-37)

Larry,

The TAG took on metaDataInIRI-31 [1] at its meeting in 2nd December [2] to
uphold the principle that encoding metaDataInURI is not a good idea (and I
have subsequently picked up the action to draft a short finding). 

From [2]:

  TB: Notion of encoding metadata in a URI is broken. Versioning has
application-specific semantics.
  ...
  CL: If we universally thing this is a bad thing to do, we should say so
loudly.
  SW Proposed: Accept medataInURI-NNN? 
  IJ: Could be short if universal response is "no".
  Resolved: Accept issue matadataInURI-NNN with note that TAG thinks the
answer is "no" 
            and will explain what to do instead.

Although, Ori's message [3] covered wider ground, embedded within were
notions of embedding versioning info in URI. Mark Baker caution against it
[4]. The TAG felt it would be useful to generate a short finding
discouraging the embedding of meta-data in URI. The 'stinger' (for me) is
the commitment in the last 6 words of the resolution, which I admit I had
lost sight of.

Certainly in accepting this issue it was not the TAG's intent to "go off
inventing new mechansims" and to fulfill the commitment of the last 6 words
of the resolution I will have a look at WebDAV to "evaluate where WebDAV
fits into the Web architecture".

Regards

Stuart
--
[1] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/ilist#metadataInURI-31
[2] http://www.w3.org/2002/12/02-tag-summary.html#metadata-uri
[3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2002Nov/0149
[4] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2002Nov/0178

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Larry Masinter [mailto:LMM@acm.org] 
> Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2003 9:35 PM
> To: Stuart Williams
> Cc: www-tag@w3.org
> Subject: [metadataInURI-31] (was Second Draft of summary of 
> TAG issue abstractComponentRefs-37)
> 
> 
> The original "issue" was about metadata, and how to
> obtain it. Putting it in the URI is one way to send
> metadata, but of course there are others. It's
> important to go back to the original issue:
> 
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2002Nov/0149
>
>   #1. There should be a uniform way to declare version history of web
>   resources (recommended by W3C)?, and more importantly
>
>   #2. There should be a "clean", uniform way to refer to (and thus
>   access) the metadata of web resources?
> 
> Note that WebDAV http://www.webdav.org/, discussed on
>   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/
> provides for a "clean" univorm way to refer to (and thus
> access) the metadata of web resources, through the
> WebDAV protocol:
>    http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2518.txt
>
> and to the versioning information about resources:
>    http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3253.txt
> 
> So before going off to invent new mechanisms, shouldn't
> the TAG evaluate where WebDAV fits into the Web architecture?

Received on Monday, 28 April 2003 09:41:21 UTC