Re: HTTP URIs and authority

Mikael Nilsson wrote:
> tis 2007-10-23 klockan 12:11 +0100 skrev Xiaoshu Wang:
>   
>> Mikael Nilsson wrote:
>>     
>>> It is apparent that you do not agree with this.Personally, I think this
>>> is maybe one of the most central parts of AWWW, and could not be
>>> emphasized enough. In any case, I don't see that the TAG has stepped
>>> away from this position just by deemphasizing URLs. URI allocation is
>>> still done by the owner.
>>>   
>>>       
>> I do agree this to certain extent. I do believe the URI owner's opinion 
>> should carry more weight on what the URI is.  It would make a better 
>> society we use a URI in a way that is compatible with the owner of 
>> resource URI.
>>
>> But the issue at hand is if the URI owner (but not the resource owner) 
>> has *all* the information about the resource that the URI denotes.  I 
>> think not.  AWWW's definition for information resource and then 
>> httpRange-14 imply this.
>>     
>
> That's not the issue. The issue is who decides *which resource* the URI
> identifies.
>
> I can coin a URI within my domain (mikaeldomain.example.org)
>
> http://mikaelsdomain.example.org/Paris
>
> to identify the city of Paris, but I'm pretty sure I don't know all or
> even most about Paris.
>
> Still, the important thing is that I, the domain owner, gets to decide
> that the URI identifies Paris. If someone decides to use the same URI to
> identify their dog named Paris, AWWW says I have authority to say they
> are wrong.
>
> However, if I say that Paris has 2 million inhabitants, and someone else
> says 3 million, I don't have authority just because I coined the URI. 
>   
I think you still do.  You own the URI but you don't own Paris.  What 
people gets back is your personal "impression" of Paris.  If other 
people don't agree with your impression, they cannot use your URI to 
denote Paris.  They have to mint a different one.  Whoever gets right 
will be shared by more people, other URIs will die.  This is the rule of 
the game.

A URI should denote one and only one thing. But the converse is not 
true.  A thing can be denoted by many URIs, but we hope it is denoted by 
only one URI.  URI owner and resource owner are not necessarily the same 
one. As a matter of fact, I think, most time they are not.

Xiaoshu

Received on Tuesday, 23 October 2007 12:00:48 UTC