Comments on "Interoperability of referential uses of hashless URIs"

Regarding
http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2011/09/referential-use.html

This document provides a very good explanation and example of the harm
that can be caused by the use of conflicting conventions around URI use.
The Creative Commons licensing case is a great example, as the publisher
of http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/78807 (for example) has created an
ambiguity problem for consumers who do not know which convention the
site has used.

However, the document seems to assume that the solution to this problem
(i.e., the conventions that the W3C should recommend) *must* prevent the
ambiguity problems that are described in section "The Conflict".  But I
think what is required from an architectural perspective is not that the
conventions *necessarily* prevent such ambiguity (because we will always
have sites of varying quality), but that the conventions support the
*ability* of publishers to avoid such ambiguity problems if they choose
to do so, and the conventions furthermore encourage publishers to do
so.  

In other words, another potential way forward is to permit both
conventions D2 ("A hashless URI refers to the document at that URI, when
there is one") and S2 ("A hashless URI permitting retrieval refers to
something described by what's retrieved") to be used, but recommend that
S2 be used *only* in cases where the ambiguity that it creates is likely
to be harmful, such as in the Creative Commons licensing case.

Such guidance also might acknowledge that: (a) it is impossible for the
publisher to foresee all of the downstream uses that could lead to
conflict or ambiguity; and (b) downstream conflict or ambiguity are
impossible to prevent anyway (in the general case), regardless of what
conventions are adopted.


-- 
David Booth, Ph.D.
http://dbooth.org/

Opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect those of his employer.

Received on Wednesday, 19 October 2011 19:47:43 UTC