Re: Persistent references

On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 1:09 PM, Larry Masinter <masinter@adobe.com> wrote:
> For myself, I've found the issue of persistence come into more clarity when considered in the context of
>
> "persistence of references to documents"
> (vs. persistence of references to other things)
> and in particular the discussion topics raised in
>
> http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2011/12/evolution/Identifiers.html
> and
> http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2011/12/evolution/References.html

Agreed.

> if you consider an RDF triple as a "protocol element" which uses URIs as "specifications" of what the subject, object, and predicate mean.
> If we had persistent URIs, would we use them instead of full citations in W3C specifications?

We would use them in addition to full citations, I think. The
persistent URI is supposed to help future automated agents, while the
human readable part helps people to know what is being sought, which
is useful for a variety of reasons, including manual backup in case
the persistent URI fails, and sanity checking any retrieved result.

The more interesting question for me is whether a conscientious
archiver of RDF would use persistent URIs (should they come into
existence) without full citations to the referenced documents (URI
documentation). I don't think this sounds wise, but I don't know -
giving a full citation for each URI occurring free in an RDF document
sounds quite onerous.

I am not currently aware of anyone attempting to curate RDF for the
permanent record, but this is the conundrum that got me interested in
the persistent URI question in the first place. Not that no one else
is thinking about this - see e.g.
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-lld/2011Apr/0066.html

Jonathan

> Larry
>
>
>

Received on Monday, 9 January 2012 00:52:22 UTC