Re: Proposal to amend the httpRange-14 resolution

On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 10:10 AM, Tore Eriksson <tore.eriksson@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2012/3/27 Jonathan A Rees <rees@mumble.net>:
>> 2012/3/26 Tore Eriksson <tore.eriksson@gmail.com>:
>>> Hi Tim,
>>>
>>> thank you for your detailed input. I'll add my comments inline.
>>>
>>> 2012/3/26 Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@w3.org>:
>>>>
>>>> On 2012-03 -26, at 01:31, トーレ エリクソン wrote:
>>>>>>> This proposal entails a partial reversion of the httpRange-14
>>>>>>> resolution. Specifically, it suggests that a representation retrieved
>>>>>>> from a HTTP URI will never* be equivalent to what the URI denotes (the
>>>>>>> resource), but will always be a description (of the state) of the
>>>>>>> resource, eliminating the risk of confusing a resource with its
>>>>>>> description.
>>>>
>>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> However, if you don't own the URI, stating this seems to irresponsible.
>>>>> The owner might add a content-negotiated Swedish translation with a
>>>>> dc:title of "Hittad" and make your statement invalid.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> That is hair-splitting -- yes, a generic IR URI may indeed by correspond to
>>>> a series of more specific versions in different languages
>>>> (See http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Generic and the associated ontology)
>>>> and one can argue whether people incorrectly actually use
>>>> one title to refer to the whole lot, but I think it is useful.
>>>
>>> I have no problem with adding the title to the generic resource,
>>> especially if you own the URI. My understanding of Jonathan's text was
>>> though that by looking at one representation titled "Trouvee", one
>>> could infer that all representations would have the same title.
>>
>> This is an incorrect reading of what I wrote. I was very careful in
>> what I said, and I did not say this.
>
> Sorry if I misrepresented your text. I'll explain why I thought it
> meant this below.
>
> You started with
>>>
> To say that any representation retrieved from "http://example/hen" has
> (or will have) "Trouvée" as its title, we can write (in Turtle
> [turtle])
>    [ir:onWebAt "http://example/hen"] dc:title "Trouvée".
> [this tells that] if they dereference that URI, they will get
> something with that dc:title [1]
>>>
>
> And then used the generic URI instead of the blank node.
>
>>>
> A common practice is to use an absolute URI as a name for a (generic)
> information entity that is on the Web at that URI.
> <http://example/hen> dc:title "Trouvée".
>>>
>
> Then you followed up with
>
>>>
> Whether we can expect in general that a dereferenceable URI will be
> understood as a name for a (generic) information entity on the Web at
> that URI is the essence of the heated httpRange-14 debate
>>>
>
> I assumed that this meant that when following httpRange-14 the RDF
> above is expected.

It would only be expected if it were true, and it would only be true
if *any* representation, not just one of them, had that property.

If I tell you that any cat I encounter today will have four legs, then
*every* cat that I *might* must have four legs, or else I am risking
being wrong - I might come across one of the cats that doesn't.

This is what I mean by the phrase "predictive metadata". We are
talking about properties of an automaton administered by human
institutions. You can't predict with certainty what it will do, since
it might break, or act unreliably - nobody can predict the future.
That doesn't stop people from making statements about the future, and
having those statements be meaningful and useful. "The check will
clear" is a perfectly meaningful thing to say, even though it only
expresses confidence, not some kind of inviolable truth.

> The URI seems to denote a generic resource. Further
> on you connect the generic information entity with the class of
> "information resources".
>
>>>
> We can say that "information resource" (the conventional term in Web
> architecture) subsumes "generic information entity" as above.
>>>
>
> My train of thought was this: If a HTML document is retrieved by with
> a 200 GET, then under httpRange-14 this is an information resource,
> and also a generic information entity. Let's say that the HTML
> document received has the dc:title "Trouvee". Then the generic
> resource also has the same title (according to [1])

That's the fallacy. The generic resource only has the property if, no
matter which representation is retrieved (across conneg variation
etc.), that representation has the property.

I guess I didn't make this clear, but it's a difficult idea to
express. If you want to know what bit of philosophy inspired me to
express it this way, see _Truth, Meaning, Reality_ by Horwich.

I thought this would be clear in the overall context of the note. I
guess I have to look again to see how I failed to communicate.

Hope this helps.

Jonathan

> and so has all the
> other resources available from the URI in question (also according to
> [1]). I suppose "titled" was a bad choice or words, it was just prose
> for
> _:representation dc:title "Trouvee" .
>
> Any clarification would be appreciated, but I know that you are
> swamped with other tasks, so feel free to just accept my apology for
> now.
>
> Tore

Received on Tuesday, 27 March 2012 20:45:43 UTC