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[Joe English]
>
> But I think I finally see where Len is going with this.
> There is an algorithm for resolving URLs; *that* is what
> makes them useful. When RDF and XMLNS play Humpty Dumpty
> and insist that a URI means what they intend it to mean,
> nothing more and nothing less, contrary to established
> practice and common understanding, it diminishes the value
> of URLs.
>
For some reason I have not had any problem with URIs as abstract identifiers
myself, but it is obvious from all the questions and arguments on many lists
that the "established practice" argument carries a lot of weight. So maybe
unrestricted URIs for namespace identifiers should be regarded as a
partially failed experiment.
It would probably have been better if the W3C had said that, if you want to
have a pure identifier that is not intended to give network access to a
resource, then use the w3c-ndi: scheme ("W3C Non-dereferenceable Identifer")
or some such, and to have issued an RFC that specified exactly those
semantics.
I suppose that too much would break if this were imposed now, but it could
still be phased in as a strongly recommended practice.
Or maybe there would still be a need to have namespaces point directly to
RDDL documents. Ah, well.
Cheers,
Tom P
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