- From: Paul W. Abrahams <abrahams@valinet.com>
- Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 19:52:56 -0400
- To: michaelm@netsol.com
- CC: Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@w3.org>, abrahams@acm.org, John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>, xml-uri@w3.org
Michael Mealling wrote: > On Wed, May 24, 2000 at 07:19:41PM -0400, Tim Berners-Lee wrote: > > > > >> > One would expect a URI reference to be > > >> > a pointer to a URI, i.e., a doubly indirect specification of a > > >> > resource, and not some generalization or specialization of a URI. > > > > > > One would, but one would be wrong. I think the term came around from > > some thought such as "a reference using a URI" or something... > > I was not very involved in the haggles about terms. It is difficult to > > be close to English usage at the end of a lot of specification > > discussions. > > Being tangentially involved in that discussion, the term came > from the fact that, at the time, the only place that used > those additional semantics of relative URIs and fragments was found > in hypertext references inside documents (i.e. places where a base > was defined and there were identified document fragments). If I understand what you and Tim are saying, that confirms my hypothesis that ``URI'' and ``URI reference '' mean essentially the same thing. That is, ``a reference using a URI'' is close to if not identical with ``a reference having the form of a URI''. And ``reference'' means ``a place in a document where a URI is used as a hypertext reference''. Paul Abrahams
Received on Wednesday, 24 May 2000 19:53:05 UTC