Information resources

Today in the TAG teleconference I took an action item to draft some 
language about resources and "Information Resources".

Many existing Web servers and clients (for example web browsers) do not 
have any notion of what the Resource identified by a URI is.  However, 
humans and Semantic Web software are strongly concerned with this issue. 
  Some resources are perceived as falling into a class called 
"Information Resources".  That is to say, they are on-line units of 
electronic information or service.  Examples would include a photograph, 
a news story, and a weather forecast for Oaxaca.  Other resources named 
by URIs may exist entirely apart from the Web.  Examples include an 
edition of some book identified by urn:isbn:0-395-36341-1, a person 
identified in an RDF assertion using http://example.com/foaf#Dan, and an 
XML namespace such as http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#.  The 
Web may be used to obtain representations of both kinds of resources.

-- 
Cheers, Tim Bray
         (ongoing fragmented essay: http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/)

Received on Monday, 28 July 2003 17:53:51 UTC