RE: [xml-dev] more politics

["Dare Obasanjo" <dareo@microsoft.com>]

What I don't understand about folks like Tim Bray and the others who believe in the religion of URIs is how they do not see the paradoxes their position causes. Arguments like "well today's Web works fine" are totally irrelevant since we aren't talking about today's Web but instead are building a basis for tomorrow's [Semantic] Web. 
 

________________________________

From: John Cowan [mailto:cowan@mercury.ccil.org]
Sent: Wed 7/23/2003 10:23 PM
To: Tim Bray
Cc: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: Re: [xml-dev] more politics



Tim Bray scripsit:

> A resource is identified by URI and may
> emit representations.  There's no way to tell from the representations
> what the resource "is"; I tend to believe a resource is what its
> publisher says it is as a good rule of thumb.  But it doesn't affect the
> software very much. 

It's not about what the resource is, but about what may be
truthfully predicated about it.  Is it true to say that the size of
"http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/vinci/joconde/joconde.jpg"; is
743x1155 pixels, or is it true to say that it is 77x53 cm?  It can't
be both.

--
John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com> www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com
Micropayment advocates mistakenly believe that efficient allocation of
resources is the purpose of markets.  Efficiency is a byproduct of market
systems, not their goal.  The reasons markets work are not because users
have embraced efficiency but because markets are the best place to allow
users to maximize their preferences, and very often their preferences are
not for conservation of cheap resources.  --Clay Shirkey

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