Re: The 'resource' identified by a namespace name URI should be the namespace

Tim Berners-Lee scripsit:

> Michael is right here, I think.  Because the only definitoin of a resource
> is its URI,  resource equality is defined by the URI quality as
> string equality of the URI.  That is a relation given us by the URI spec.

What URI spec?  The only one I know of is RFC 2396, which says:

# In many cases, different URI strings may actually identify the
# identical resource.

> Suggest that the URI of something given by a URI-reference is anything
> other than the URI defined in eth URI spec as that referredto by the URI
> reference
> would be spilitting hairs to a fine degree indeed.

To be sure.  But what is to be done?  Insisting on treating namespace
names as URI references to the namespaces (which implies the need for
RFC 2396 resolution, alias "absolutization", to determine namespace
identity) is generating howls of protest.  I'm offering a way out
of the dilemma (or trilemma, if you count the "forbid" position).

> Let's say it has an identifier and a title.

Okay, fine.  Talk about people rather than books then; your *name* is
"Tim Berners-Lee", not some URI.

<ad-hominem>
> John, normally you are the voice of reason but here wit this data:
> idea I fear you really have gone off at a tangent!  :-)

*shrug*.  Going off at a tangent may be the only way out of an intolerable
orbit around the same problem.

>   The data: URI scheme
> has a significance, that a data:,foo URI identifies that resource whose
> *representation* (not name) is the string "foo".

So I am conflating, for namespace purposes, the entity body with the
name property.  That may produce more useful results *in this case*
than conflating the namespace's name with its URI.

> If and when "foo" in some language is a representation of a namespace
> then that would be a namesapce identifier.

Eh?  "foo" is a valid namespace name already.

> I suppose (correct the details but get the gist)
> 
>     data:application/xml-schema,<schema></schema>
> 
> given the appropriate escaping of the <> could be used as a definition
> of an empty namespace.

Here comes the namespace-name-ought-to-retrieve-a-schema red herring
again.  I think talking about this vision simply undercuts the rest of
your case.  (Anyhow, as best I understand it, schemas apply to documents
or document fragments, and can easily describe more than one namespace.)

> If I had a key to turn all the messages on the list which mentioedn "data:"
> a very pale shade of gr[e|a]y I would use it.....

Fine.  Then feel free to stay stuck, and leave your organization
wedged again because of irreconcilable differences (does the phrase
"HTML 3.0" suggest anything?).
</ad-hominem>

-- 
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
	Yes, I know the message date is bogus.  I can't help it.
		--me, on far too many occasions

Received on Saturday, 3 June 2000 00:16:48 UTC