Re: TAG request: establish the relationship between URIs and Resources is many to many

Tim Bray wrote:

> How about a slight recasting of that:
> 
> 1. Different URIs can identify the same resource, in the opinion of the 
> creators and users of that resource.
> 2. The Web is designed on the principle that a single URI identifies a 
> single resource which does not change.  In practice, this principle is 
> someties violated (insert list of nasty examples), and software must 
> often deal with the consequences, but such inconsistency is always 
> damaging and SHOULD be avoided.  -Tim

Clearer, thanks. But abuse of this principle also affects 
specifications such as RDF, as well as web software. For example it 
will mean we have to merge RDF graphs with great caution before 
inferences can be made and we have to be careful about RDF queries 
that span multiple graphs.

If the rdf-wg were happy to add words to the primer about how 
breaking this principle interplays with the function that determines 
the denotation of a URI, that would help greatly. That is, when 
merging two RDF graphs, be aware that a URI  used in graph 1 might 
not have the same denotation as it does in graph 2.

Bill de hÓra

Received on Thursday, 23 January 2003 12:07:32 UTC