Re: What is at the end of the namespace?

> > Earlier you suggested that "brilliance" was abstract, yet I happen
> > to have a URI for it here;
> > 
> > http://www.markbaker.ca/2001/11/Brilliance/
> 
> No, that's a URL to retrieve a definition of the abstract
> concept 'BRILLIANCE' from a particular web location.

No, it's what I say it is.  How can you, or anybody else, tell me what
I'm naming?

> The
> fact that you have a clever redirect does not make the URL
> any more suitable a representation of the abstract concept
> than http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=brilliance.

The redirect communicates that I'm currently (it's a temporary
redirect) delegating the definition of my concept of brilliance to
dictionary.com.

> I.e.
> 
>    <rdf:Description
> rdf:about="voc://patrick.stickler@nokia.com/concepts/brilliance">
>       <foo:definitionOf
> rdf:resource="http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=brilliance"/>
>    </rdf:Description>
> 
> could be one way I could point to a definition of
> "BRILLIANCE" as *I* conceive it, though I may choose some
> other definition, or multiple definitions, as I see fit.

Using an HTTP temporary redirect on a GET invocation means more or less
the same thing as what you have written there.  It's "just" another
syntax that also happens to be a protocol, that allows you to automate
the dissemination and manipulation of that information.

Without a protocol that does that, any other URI scheme is automatically
playing with a handicap.

MB
-- 
Mark Baker, CSO, Planetfred.
Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.
mbaker@planetfred.com

Received on Monday, 19 November 2001 15:18:06 UTC