xml-dev - RE: Semantic Web Hackings

[Danny Ayers <danny@panlanka.net>]

Hi,
I suspect TimBL hasn't spent much time looking at the domestic use of mail
addresses - personally I know one couple reachable at don.deb@... and a
whole family at bronte@... (Bronte is the daughter's name). A further
problem is when addresses change - I recently needed to change some domain
name settings, using a web interface, for which I needed the email address I
used as 'admin'. Changing job a couple of times, and country once meant that
I had absolutely no idea...

However, there isn't much else around at the moment - 'mailto:' looks
promising. I would think that the second problem could be reasonably covered
using some kind of timestamping and referencing, and the sitting-on-lap
problem could be handled by additional qualifying attributes. The general
idea I reckon is basically valid - the URI doesn't have to refer to the
person, just their interface to the digital environment.

Security could be a bigger problem though, I would think the overheads could
get sticky - perhaps one could have a public URI (not secure) and a private
one (digitally signed)?

You asked for ideas on a postcard, and I remembered the Dublin Core 'Author
or Creator', which led me to the human URI of the form :

boris.ivan.vlad

i.e.  Vlad, son of Ivan, son of Boris...

(before anyone ticks me off - women could use the maternal line ;-)

I believe there are already geneology schemas in circulation...

Cheers,
Danny.