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RE: Do sheep dream of electric URLs?

• To: 'Didier PH Martin' <martind@n...>, 'Xml-Dev' <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: Do sheep dream of electric URLs?
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2002 08:44:58 -0500

I find it best to consider that conflation a 
system conceit.  It isn't right or wrong.  It is 
a way to construct a language for a system that 
depends on resolution to a location to ensure 
uniqueness, then uses that uniqueness in location 
independent ways.  It is important to consider 
the origin and order of emergent properties, because 
properties do not emerge from static systems, but 
from active ones.   The properties themselves may 
be static, but not the forces of engagement.  

As a thought experiment:

The URI doesn't start life as a unique identifier. 
For it to exist, the authority must exist and must 
among other things, control a server on the DNS 
system.  Location is the first property. 
uniqueness is the penultimate property; 
nameness is the last.

What one has to be clear about is that URIness 
doesn't exist independent of the Web.  To be 
on the Web is to have a URI.  To not have a URI 
is to not be on the web.   What this means also 
is that there is a competition of the web and 
other systems to own information.  By tieing 
RDF to URIs, the same process of absorbing all 
information onto the web is occurring, and this 
under the authority of server owners.

Now sit down and read some bits by Lawrence Lessig 
and consider the complications of that. 

One can't take the trip without swallowing the tab.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: Didier PH Martin [mailto:martind@n...]

HTTP is a strange beast since it is a protocol that in its very basic
nature includes some actions like get, post, delete, etc... So, HTTP is
a moniker for a set of actions. However, some want to use it to "name"
thing and ignore the set of action it represents. So it seems that
fundamentally, some confusion reign about what is really and HTTP URL:
a) an identifier
b) a locator
c) partisans of the dual theory like the one we already get in physics
(dual nature of light - particle and wave) think that it is both. Since
officially a URL is also a URI I guess they are right
d) a set of action. Seems that few today perceive that a lot of
confusion occurs because of a three facet nature of HTTP URL. 1)
identifier, 2) locator, 3) set of actions used to manipulate resources'
representations (i.e. documents)

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