RE: XLink resource confusion (long)

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

RFC 2396:

"A resource can be anything that has identity..."

The argument starts here.  Until one has a formal 
process for establishing identity, this definiton 
is vacuous.  Identity is and always is "system-bound".

"Not all resources are network retrievable."

This makes it worse.  Now there is no means to 
make identification by process system specific 
if all we are talking about is a "resource".

"The resource is the conceptual mapping to an entity 
or set of entities, not necessarily the entity 
which corresponds to that mapping at any particular 
instance in time."

Now we are back to a formal process, aka a mapping 
with the proviso that a timestamp might be required 
as part of the mapping.

In the IETF world, a resource is a thing, a massively 
overload term with contradictory definitions.  In 
the ISO world, there is a PUBLIC name that may 
be registered in a system, a System name that 
must be resolvable.  

Len 
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h


-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher R. Maden [mailto:crism@maden.org]
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 12:00 AM
To: XML DEV
Subject: Re: XLink resource confusion (long)


At 02:16 1-05-2001, jackson wrote:
>I am confused as to the meaning of 'resource' in the
>the XLink draft spec [Spec]. I'd be glad of any comments.

See ?2.1:

    The notion of resources is universal to the World Wide Web.
    [Definition: As discussed in [IETF RFC 2396], a resource is
    any addressable unit of information or service.]