RE: URI for abstract concepts (domain, host, origin, site, etc.)

Larry,

On Sun, 2009-06-28 at 10:53 -0700, Larry Masinter wrote:
> I'm thinking about revising
>  http://larry.masinter.net/duri.html
> 
> to:
> (1) to get rid of "duri" and just stick with "tdb"
>   (because there isn't much use for duri at all)
> (2) make it a URI scheme rather than a URN namespace
> (3) make the date optional, for cases where the time of
>   binding resource to representation (and of interpretation
>   of that representation to an 'abstract concept')
> 
> So the simplest form would be
> 
> tdb:http://larry.masinter.net

That makes it remarkably similar to
http://t-d-b.org?http://larry.masinter.net

but the t-d-b.org URI has the advantage that it doesn't require a new
URI scheme, and it *might* be dereferenceable by a browser.  In fact, at
the moment it *is* dereferenceable. 

> 
> which would neatly allow using descriptions of
> abstract concepts to identify the abstract concept.

That sounds like what the "http://t-d-b.org?" prefix does.

> (Syntactically, the date can be left out without
> ambiguity.)
> 
> Would this be helpful, at least for illustrative purposes?

I think the goal is reasonable, but as explained in
http://dbooth.org/2006/urn2http/
I don't think a new URI scheme is necessary to achieve it.  Similar
things can be done with http URIs, with greater benefit.

> 
> I think there are other means for distinguishing
> between the representation of a  description and 
> the thing described, but this would at least
> add a well-known method that isn't tied to
> any particular protocol, linking method, resolution
> method, etc.

Right, but "http:" URIs do not necessarily need to be resolved using
HTTP, nor do they necessarily need to be resolved at all.  At worst they
can be treated as opaque strings, but at best they *might* be
dereferenceable to useful information.  A URI prefix like
"http://t-d-b.org?" can become "well known" just as "tdb:" can.  This is
a social issue, independent of whether a new scheme is defined.


-- 
David Booth, Ph.D.
Cleveland Clinic (contractor)

Opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect those of Cleveland Clinic.

Received on Thursday, 2 July 2009 14:47:33 UTC