Re: URI resolver was Re: RDDL and XML Schemas Proposed Recommendation

[John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>]

Justin Couch wrote:


>> Things like RDF allow you to make statements "about" resources without
>> needing to resolve the URI. 
> 
> Well that is an invalid statement. It is easy to prove it to be false
> because you may say something and then have the resolver tell you it is
> completely different. That is, these can only strictly be limited to a
> collection of hints until an authorative answer is given by actually
> resolving a resource. For example, that URN above, your RDF says that it
> is a comic book. If you resolved it you would find it is a technical
> book about Java network programming.

That means the RDF is wrong, which is orthogonal to its being authoritative.
:-)  In any event, though, retrieval (not "resolution" as you call it) is
definitely not a way of finding out authoritative things.  If you GET a
certain http: URL, it may return the text/plain entity body
"Mon Mar 26 10:24:17 EST 2001", but there is nothing to say whether your URL
is fetching the current time, or a fixed string, or something else altogether.
RDF *can* provide authoritative information on this point, provided the
RDF is approved by an authority (human).
-- 
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