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

[Murray Altheim]

Jan Algermissen wrote:
> "Thomas B. Passin" wrote:
> 
>>Jan Algermissen wrote:
>>
>>>Thomas, please answer this:
>>>
>>>a) in RDF, what does "http://www.w3.org/index.html" denote?
>>>
>>>b) in TM-land, what does "http://www.w3.org/index.html" denote?
>>
>>I have no idea.  
> 
> Well, 'denote' was the wrong word to use. I meant 'identify'.
> 
> So in a) the URI per definition allways identfies the Web-Resource
> (whatever that resource is intended to be in this case) and in
> b) we cannot be sure if the resource either identifies the WebResource or
> a subject that is indicated by this Web-resource. We'd need the addressing
> context to answer this.
> 
> What I wanted to stress is that addressing in RDF and Topic Maps is really
> different and not compatible.
> 
> Furthermore, Topic Maps implicitly make the assumption that a URI identifies
> a resource that 'is' a document. TMs completely ignore the possibility that
> http://www.w3.org/index.html might actually identify 'the W3C'. A TM author
> could really make the W3C an occurrence of some topic in that case.

Jan,

I think that in order to be more clear, the "addressing context" in
your question needs to be made more clear, i.e., rather than a URI,
you should perhaps state the question in terms of a URI reference as
value of a specific syntactic construct, e.g.:

Q: in TM-land, what does

      <topicRef xlink:href="http://www.w3.org/index.html"/>
      <subjectIndicatorRef xlink:href="http://www.w3.org/index.html"/>
      <resourceRef xlink:href="http://www.w3.org/index.html"/>

    identify?

Which I believe is the difference between TMs and RDF you're talking
about here.

[Not that I disagree with your conclusion.]

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.