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

[Jan Algermissen]

Murray Altheim wrote:

> 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

Yes, the whole point was to demonstrate that in RDF the URI allone is sufficient
to know what the URI identifies [1] because there is only *one* addressing context.
In TM-land we have two different addressing contexts ('use-URI-as-subject-address
and 'use-URI-as-subjectIdentifier'), so the URI alon is not sufficient to know what
it identifies.

[1] it is of course a totally different issue what the identified resource actually
    is an abstraction of.
> 
> [Not that I disagree with your conclusion.]

Oh well, I am sorry if I caused confusion by unclear wording. I just wanted
to bring these issues to the TM communities attention.

Jan


> 
> 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.

-- 
Jan Algermissen                           http://www.topicmapping.com
Consultant & Programmer	                  http://www.gooseworks.org