Re: Owner is not ultimate authority [was Re: URI declarations]

Jonathan Rees wrote:
> A URI owner may have the "authority" to define a term at the time of 
> minting, but once a term is released into the wild and is used by the 
> community, the community is really the arbiter of meaning, not the URI 
> owner. If the URI owner proves to be trustworthy, that's fine, but the 
> privilege of being treated as the "authority" for a term's definition 
> (or declaration) should be earned, not assumed.
I understand your concern but I don't think a consensus can prevent 
owner from recruiting a community for the newly changed meaning .  For 
someone who first encounter a URI, what can s/he do? Google? Then we 
lost the whole point . S/he can only follow the URI and acquire the new 
meanings.  For the existing community, they either has to adjust 
themselves or abandon the URI.  There is no alternative.

If you still remember the semantic web layered cake, "trust" is at the 
very top. We have to start walking before running.  Dealing criminal 
intent is in a totally different mentality because what makes a 
criminal's life difficult also makes a user life hard at least very 
inconvenient, as well. If TBL's starts building the web on distrust, I 
don't the web will be as popular as it is today.  The owner, IMHO, 
should have the ultimate right to choose/change the meanings of the URIs 
they own.  Assuming all owners are not criminal, if they understand the 
importance of stable URI, they will think very hard before they make 
decision.  The more important the URI is, the harder they will think.  
But if they do, we should respect their wishes because it is their 
resources at last.

Xiaoshu
Xiaoshu

Received on Friday, 31 August 2007 22:08:35 UTC