Multi-conference report: VO and SW

[Bernard Vatant]

To follow Tony's arguments, see also current debates about other "controversial" or
"non-conventional" URI schemes.

CURIEs (Compact URIs)
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2005Nov/0184.html

INFO URI
http://www.niso.org/news/releases/pr-InfoURI-11-05.html

> d) no one but an astronomer could possibly interpret our resources anyway and they'll
all be 'in the know'.

Yes, I think this is a killer argument. IPTC pushes the use of CURIEs, for similar reasons
(news agencies will be the only users).

Bottom line : SW folks assume an "unique open information world", but the reality is that
URIs will be used in semi-open (or semi-closed) worlds, or communities of users, inside
which "universal" identifiers such as http URLs will not be relevant.

Cheers

Bernard

----------------------------------
Bernard Vatant
Mondeca Knowledge Engineering
bernard.vatant at mondeca.com
(+33) 0871 488 459

http://www.mondeca.com
http://universimmedia.blogspot.com
----------------------------------

> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : owner-semantics at eso.org [mailto:owner-semantics at eso.org]De la part
> de Tony Linde
> Envoye : lundi 5 decembre 2005 10:17
> A : semantics at ivoa.net
> Objet : RE: Multi-conference report: VO and SW
>
>
> > I would appreciate an elaboration of why it ivo: is bad. It
>
> I think it isn't Norman saying this but the W3C. See his section
> http://nxg.me.uk/note/2005/vo-and-sw/#dcc. They're simply saying that a
> proliferation of naming schemes is bad practice, presumably because only
> those in the know can interpret those naming schemes - they aren't globally
> interpretable.
>
> Personally, it doesn't worry me because a) our URI scheme generally follows
> the guidelines for naming; b) as is pointed out, plenty of others are doing
> the same; c) we also provide DC standard details so the metadata is globally
> available even if the data isn't; d) no one but an astronomer could possibly
> interpret our resources anyway and they'll all be 'in the know'.
>
> Cheers,
> Tony.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-semantics at eso.org
> > [mailto:owner-semantics at eso.org] On Behalf Of roy at cacr.caltech.edu
> > Sent: 04 December 2005 22:58
> > To: norman at astro.gla.ac.uk
> > Cc: semantics at ivoa.net
> > Subject: Re: Multi-conference report: VO and SW
> >
> > Norman
> >
> > I think this thing that you call out as bad practice was my idea:
> >
> > "We don't seem to be doing anything that stands out as Bad
> > Practice, with the possible exception of the proposed ivo:
> > URI scheme."
> >
> > I would appreciate an elaboration of why it ivo: is bad. It
> > would seem to me that the prefix http: means Hypertext
> > transfer protocol (that's what I grew up with anyway), and
> > that our identifiers are definitively NOT that.
> > I really dislike this practice of making non-URLs look like
> > URLs, it is confusing.
> >
> > Therefore I pushed to have a scheme so that it is quite clear
> > that this is not a URL. In fact, the thing you can do is
> > resolve it with an IVOA registry and ivo: makes that clear.
> >
> > Another example is the XML namespace. This is a silly name for it:
> > http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance. I would suggest
> > that xmlns://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance would be better.
> >
> > It reminds me of how Native Americans are sometimes called
> > Indians, which is immediately followed by an explanation that
> > they are not from India.
> >
> > Thank you
> > Roy
> >
> >
> >