Re: URGENT: train wreck coming, action needed.

From: pat hayes <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>
Subject: URGENT: train wreck coming, action needed. (was: Fwd: URI-CG group chartered)
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 15:06:30 -0600

[...]

> >From: Graham Klyne <gk@ninebynine.org>

[...]

> >(1) a suggestion that "resources" don't exist unless a URI is 
> >defined for them.  (I raised an objection to this --because we have 
> >bnodes-- which was somewhat brushed aside with "If RDF has a problem 
> >with URIs its RDF's problem not URI's problem.  Since the matter is 
> >more philosophical than of practical import, I don't think it's a 
> >big deal.)

[...]

I agree with Pat here.  This would be the end of the Semantic Web as we
know (and, maybe, love) it.  

Not only that but this King Canute denial of the existence of unnamed
resources would only serve to make any body that proclaimed this the
subject of ridicule.  (This proclamation would, among other things, require
that there are only countably many real numbers.)  I suggest that WebOnt
quickly prepare an official comment on this disastrous suggestion before it
can gather any momentum.


As far as suggestions on how to fix the problem.  I suggest that all is
needed is to not deny the existence of resources that don't have URIs.
This could either be done by not saying anything on the issue, or by
explicitly saying that any mapping from URIs to resources is not
surjective.


peter

Received on Friday, 4 April 2003 21:21:01 UTC