Re: Is a namesapce a resource? - was: duck

I think the proper reading here is that the  URI itself is the namespace's
identity. A namespace is defined by a point in URI space. That's _all_ it's
defined by.

In programming terms: The Namespace occupies an address. We recognize it as
a unique object by looking at that address. Nobody has yet defined what
data exists at that address, if any. But that isn't a problem for the
Namespace spec, which is defined purely in terms of that address.

Looking at it this way, part of our debate is over whether it makes sense
to point to something which is supposed to be uniquely recognizable by
using an offset from the address of our instance document. That may be
convenient when you happen to know both addresses and/or can guarantee that
the two objects will maintain the same position relationship when moved,
but it's a very fragile connection ... perhaps too fragile to serve the
intended purposes.

______________________________________
Joe Kesselman  / IBM Research

Received on Thursday, 8 June 2000 15:50:00 UTC