RE: information resources [was: Draft minutes...]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-tag-request@w3.org 
> [mailto:www-tag-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of
> ext Dan Connolly
> Sent: 07 October, 2004 16:21
> To: Stickler Patrick (Nokia-TP-MSW/Tampere)
> Cc: www-tag@w3.org; chris@w3.org
> Subject: information resources [was: Draft minutes...]
> 
> 
> 
> On Oct 7, 2004, at 10:10 AM, <Patrick.Stickler@nokia.com> wrote:
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > One comments on the minutes of your meeting.
> >
> > DanC suggests:
> >
> > [
> > Dan: One difference occured to me, if you can get hold of the
> > resource itself for commercial purposes can the resource be
> > duplicated, or consumed, bu looking at it so therefore a movie,
> > donloaded anfd not paid for is an info resource while the table
> > is not because looking at the table did not consume it
> > ]
> >
> > Firstly: would it be fair to recast this as "an information
> > resource is any resource that might fall within the scope
> > of copyright law"?
> 
> Close...
> 
> That's a relevant subset of information resource, but, for example,
> a list of the 1st 200 prime numbers is an information resource
> but isn't copyrightable, AFAIK.

Good point. 

This is also, I think, a good illustration why trying to nail down
the definition of an "information resource" (if not equivalent
to "web resource" as presently defined in AWWW) as an essential
bit of the web machinery at this stage is going to be a very
long, drawn out, and painful process (not that it hasn't been
up to now, eh? ;-)

> 
> >  That sounds like a useful criteria for
> > determining (potential/probable) membership in the class
> > of "information resources" -- though this could (should)
> > simply be captured in an RDF schema that folks can use to
> > classify their resources as they see fit.
> 
> It's captured in a few RDF schemas; for example
> 
> http://www.cyc.com/2004/06/04/cyc#AbstractInformationalThing
> (the hypertext docs are also useful
> http://www.cyc.com/cycdoc/vocab/info- 
> vocab.html#AbstractInformationalThing )

Thanks for the pointer. Interesting. Need to look at this
more slowly...

> I've done a little work on an RDF schema using the terms in 
> the webarch
> document (http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/fdesc54/ ) but I haven't 
> touched it
> in a while and the TAG hasn't discussed it in a while. Thanks 
> for the  
> prod;
> maybe I'll put some effort there. Dunno...

At some point, it would be really nice to have an official
W3C ontology for the key classes of resources (mostly) agreed 
upon thus far.

I wouldn't want to see that effort be tied in with or slow
down the work on AWWW, but I think it would be highly
complimentary.

> > Secondly: I don't think the issue has ever been that folks are
> > particularly confused about what TimBL means by 
> "information resource",
> > but rather whether the set of web-accessible resources should be
> > constrained to be equivalent to the set of "information resources"
> > per TimBLs definition. The above test helps to clarify the
> > nature of the membership of "information resources" (per TimBLs
> > definition) but does not address the question of whether that class
> > should be equivalent to the class of web-accessible resources.
> 
> equivalent... do you mean subset? 

I actually meant equivalent when I wrote it, but think now that
I should have meant subset ;-)

> I haven't heard anybody
> argue that all information resources are web-accessible.
> 
> But yes... the discussion of the issue often involves 
> re-iterated claims
> that HTTP-gettable resource is a subset of information resource
> that are not found to be satisfying/convincing to other TAG members.

Not to mention some non-TAG members ;-)

Thanks,

Patrick

Received on Thursday, 7 October 2004 15:28:42 UTC