Re: Uniform access to descriptions

Harry Halpin wrote:
<snip>
> Sigh. Look, in some cases content negotiation for RDF is not going to
> work. Resources can be linked to each other to provide descriptions and
> authoritative meta data. Linking is very powerful. Most people know what
> links are. Most people have no idea that content negotiation even exists.
>   
Are you talking about HTTP LINK: header or HTML <link>.  The latter is 
fine.  What I mean the former is useless.
>> What is the purpose of Link then? To make a client to read something
>> and then figuring out where the metadata is? Then, putting the Link in
>> the content is sufficient.
>>     
> Yep, and I might add Yahoo! and others are already moving to supporting
> this way of adding metadata [1]. I think it's generally a good idea to
> standardize things that the majority of the Web is moving to.  And in
> some cases the Link cannot be put directly in the content, and in some
> cases it can. Please read the GRDDL use-cases [2].
>   
Both [1] and [2] are HTML <link>, which is fine and necessary.  But not 
HTTP LINK.
>> Either way, it makes the use of Link redundant .  Of course, unless we
>> want to abandon content-negotiation, which I don't think we should. 
>> Otherwise, Link is unnecessary.
>>     
> Content negotiation is always an option, but it's one many people don't
> have access to, because they are in a managed IT environment. How about
> giving people *more* options for adding metadata to their page, instead
> of *less*?
>   
Content negotiation is an option or less used feature because previous 
to semantic web, there is no need to.  If this issue of "Uniform access 
to descriptions" is about to standardize HTML or XML, that is O.K.  But 
the same rational cannot be applied to HTTP.  If people don't have 
access to configure content negotiation, s/he won't have access to 
modify his HTTP LINK header either.  Again, I might have misunderstood 
what is arguing about here. But if it is intend to add LINK header for 
an HTTP content, my opinion is - no, don't do it.

Regards,

Xiaoshu

Received on Monday, 24 March 2008 19:33:33 UTC