RE: Arch Doc: 15 July 2003 Editor's Draft

On Wed, 2003-07-16 at 10:09, David Orchard wrote:
> >
> > So I think this change was reasonable in light of comments.
> >
> > I don't think we gain a lot by defining "on the Web." We probably
> > gain more by sticking to talking about identification and exchange
> > of representations when we mean one or the other or both.
> >
> 
> As I've said repeatedly, I would like to see us define "on the web" in our
> web architecture document.  I separately provided a variety of justification
> for my opinion.  I don't think you could have possibly misunderstood my
> desire on this.
> 
> I don't understand why you would remove a phrase from the document when at
> least one TAG member has strongly indicated that it should remain, and there
> has been no TAG consensus that it should be removed.  Please return the
> phrase back into the document.  I've offered a variety of definitions that
> can provide a starting point for this term.


Obviously we should take the opportunity at the face-to-face meeting
to decide as a group whether we can agree to a definition of "on
the Web" and whether such a definition will benefit the Architecture
Document.

I can think of at least several options for defining what it means 
for a resource to be "on the Web":

 1) Is identified by a URI.
 2) Is identified by a deferenceable URI. 
 3) Option 2 and has 1 or more representations.
 4) Option 3 where 1 or more representations is electronic.

I am not yet convinced that it is cost-effective to build consensus
around one meaning around the phrase "on the Web" when we can probably
use smaller-grained expressions (identifier, representation, etc.) to
communicate the architecture more precisely.

 - Ian

-- 
Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                     +1 718 260-9447

Received on Wednesday, 16 July 2003 14:10:03 UTC