Jonathan Rochkind writes:
> > Organization need to have a clear understanding of what they are
> > minting URIs for.
>
> Precisely. And in the real world... they don't always have
> that. Neither the minters nor the users of URIs, especially the
> users of http URIs, where you can find so many potential http URIs
> that are different but seem to refer to the same thing.
>
> ONE of the benefits of info is that the registry process forces
> minters to develop that clear understanding (to some extent), and
> documents it for later users. There are also other pros and cons.
>
> But again, I think http URIs _used appropriately_ can certainly
> serve the same purpose as info uris. In actuality, there seems to
> be a lot of things causing people to use them inappropriately.
This is the best (and, maybe not coincidentally) the most concise
summary of the issue that I've read.
Houghton,Andrew writes:
> People see http: and assume that it means the HTTP protocol so it
> must be a locator. [...] People don't understand what RFC 3986 is
> saying. It makes no claim that any URI registered scheme has
> persistence or can be dereferenced. An HTTP URI is just a token to
> identify some resource, nothing more.
This is technically true ... just as it's technically true that a
female breast is just a piece of fatty tissue. But, just like
boobies, http: URLs carry a LOT of cultural baggage and all sorts of
connotations -- some just wired into our minds, some coded right down
into our mail-readers and other software -- and they simply cannot be
realistically seen in that light by the great majority of people.
I suppose the bottom line is that, although we all agree that http:
URLs can indeed serve as identifiers, there are lots of good "soft"
reasons why it's useful to be able to tell a location from an
identifier at a glace -- both for busy people and for lazy software.
So to my surprise I am finding myself sort of reconciled with info:
URIs, even though I didn't like them at first.
(Although I'd like like them more if I could mint them myself wihout
needing to go through a registration process, like I can with http:
URLs. Something like info:bydomain:miketaylor.org.uk/someSchema/1.0)
_/|_ ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/ Mike Taylor <[log in to unmask]> http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\ You have to take me in the spirit in which I'm intended.
|