[topicmapmail] Meaning of URIs - ongoing debate on new W3C forum

[Murray Altheim]

Bernard Vatant wrote:
> Folks
> 
> A quite new and very interesting open forum about "meaning of URIs" to
> follow at
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-sw-meaning/
> 
> Read carefully e.g. this intervention from Pat Hayes
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-sw-meaning/2003Sep/0122.html
> 
> It makes clearly the case for the distinction between what we call subject
> address and subject indicator. I've answered, remarking that it is
> something well known by Topic Maps. Not quite new, but still to be stressed
> ...
> Maybe some of TM gurus would like to jump in that debate to support that
> viewpoint. What is at stake is critical - making W3C specifications endorse
> TBL's theory of URIs "unique meaning" - which is obviously a dead end, or
> have them move to something making more sense, along the lines that TM have
> explored ...

Bernard,

Not that the issue isn't important, but what TimBL thinks is really
pretty irrelevant. Only those sucked into thinking his viewpoint is
important (which admittedly includes a lot within the W3C community)
are going to pay any attention to this. In the long run, it's what
the entire web community *does* with URIs that really matters. We're
a lot bigger than TimBL and the W3C nowadays, despite what some might
want to believe.

For myself, I've *tried* (not always successfully) to spend my energy
on more fruitful debates. This one has been sucking up vital life
juices (to borrow a phrase from the Red Hot Chili Peppers) for waaaay
too long. And I'm not sure anyone can ever change the religiosity of
their viewpoint via debate -- if that was possible, it'd have happened
by now. [maybe I've *finally* gotten old enough to follow those words in
Desiderata...]

Murray

......................................................................
Murray Altheim                    http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK               .

   The world, Bush said, is now riven by "the clearest of divides:
   between those who seek order and those who spread chaos; between
   those who work for peaceful change and those who adopt the methods
   of gangsters; between those who honor the rights of man and those
   who deliberately take the lives of men and women and children
   without mercy or shame. Between these alternatives there is no
   neutral ground."
   http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/09/24/MN298975.DTL

   Actions speak louder than words, and I think it's pretty clear
   which side of the divide Bush is on.