Re: "information resource"

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On Sep 1, 2004, at 7:42, <Patrick.Stickler@nokia.com> wrote:

>
>
> Regarding the August 16 version of "Architecture of the World Wide Web"
>
> http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-webarch-20040816/#dereference-uri
>
> In section 3.1 it states:
>
> "The term Information Resource refers to resources that convey 
> information.
>  Any resource that has a representation is an information resource."
>
> While I understand the desire to introduce a term which enables people
> to speak directly about resources which are web-accessible, it seems to
> me that this particular term will provide more confusion than utility.
>
> Since *any* resource *can* (potentially) have a representation, the
> membership of the class of "information resources" is a reflection of
> the management, over time, of those resources, not any intrinsic
> characteristic of the resources themselves.

Actually, the document uses the term "representation" only for the 
relationship between an information resource and its Representation.

If there is a dog, a picture of the dog, and a representation (bits and 
metadata) of the picture, then the document would say that the dog is 
the subject of the picture, that the picture has a representation in 
the (bits + metadata).

The document makes the distinction between a dog and the picture 
because it needs to (especially later on for semantic web things) even 
though the HTTP spec doesn't really need to.

So, in the terms of the document, only information resources have 
representations.
There was a lot of confusion, expressed in last call comments, before 
this distinction was introduced.  An information resource is something 
like a picture, text message, or poem, which conveys information.

Tim BL

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Received on Wednesday, 1 September 2004 17:17:55 UTC