xml-dev - Re: Ownership of Names (was Re: Public identifiers and topic maps)

[John Cowan <cowan@locke.ccil.org>]

W. Eliot Kimber wrote:

> So I maintain my assertion that names, not just name spaces, are ownable
> things.

The difficulty is that there are so many names that are public domain;
their meaning is settled by tacit agreement among the users, not by
registration.  (This does not mean that the *referent* is necessarily
in the public domain.)

For example, the name "Spencertown, New York" is not registered anywhere.
Spencertown is a part of the Town of Austerlitz ("Towns" in New York
State and New England are roughly what is called "townships" elsewhere
in the U.S.:  registered land units larger than a county).  But it
is custom alone that says what is, and what is not, Spencertown.

Nevertheless, it makes sense as a topic of conversation.  "I am going
to Spencertown" is intelligible even though Spencertown is not
subject to precise definition.  How shall we handle names of this sort?

-- 
John Cowan	http://www.ccil.org/~cowan		cowan@ccil.org
	You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
	You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
		Clear all so!  'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)

xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@ic.ac.uk
Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/
To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@ic.ac.uk the following message;
(un)subscribe xml-dev
To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@ic.ac.uk the following message;
subscribe xml-dev-digest
List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@ic.ac.uk)