Re: Terminology Question concerning Web Architecture and Linked Data

Hey Stuart,

On 8/13/07, Stuart Williams <skw@hp.com> wrote:
> Mark,
>
> Could you elaborate a little more on the distinction that you are making
> between 'direct' and 'indirect' reference.

I just mean what the TAG described here;

http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/#indirect-identification

> An example of each would be
> helpful... and particularly one where the 'direct' references refer to
> the same thing, but where the corresponding 'indirect' references refer
> to different things.

Hmm, I don't see how such an example would shed any light on my issue,
but hopefully expanding on the example from AWWW might ...

Suppose Nadia had two email addresses, nadia-work@example.com and
nadia-personal@example.com.  She might use each to *directly*
identify, respectively, her work and personal email inboxes.  However
the organizers of a conference might be free to use either to
*indirectly* identify her person.  But I don't believe it would be
correct for those organizers to state that those two URIs were
owl:sameAs because they don't know what either of them directly
identify.  Even if the conference organizers minted their own URI for
Nadia - say, http://example.org/~nadia - and so knew exactly
(directly) what it identified, it still, IMO, would not be correct for
them to state that their URI was owl:sameAs either of Nadia's mailto
URIs, again because they don't know what her URI directly identifies.

The above assumes that owl:sameAs is defined in terms of direct
reference, which I think is the only sane interpretation of "same as"
(same resource).  If owl:sameAs were defined in terms of indirect
reference, then you'd be able to make silly declarations such as;

  <http://www.number-10.gov.uk/> owl:sameAs
     <http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/> .

because both of those URIs can be used to indirectly identify the UK government.

Mark.
-- 
Mark Baker.  Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.         http://www.markbaker.ca
Coactus; Web-inspired integration strategies  http://www.coactus.com

Received on Monday, 13 August 2007 14:51:45 UTC