David Huynh wrote:
Tim,
Tim Berners-Lee wrote:
On 2009-05 -18, at 07:20, David Huynh wrote:
Sherman Monroe wrote:
[...] For example, when I search for Microsoft on Google, the first
result not only IS what I want, but also LOOKs like what I want. I
can make the decision to click on it within maybe 1 or 2 seconds.
The URL "www.microsoft.com <http://www.microsoft.com>" in that
search result is perhaps the most convincing element, as I know only
*the* Microsoft can possibly own that domain. (This will be a
challenge for any SW search engine, because no-one can own any URI,
and so, seeing a URI alone means pretty much nothing. That's one of
the main differences between URL and URI, which is usually swept
under the rug.)
I had to pick up in "no-one can own any URI".
First of all, terms: URL is not really a term in the architecture of
the WWW. I find it best to use "URI". "URL" does occur in the
browser UI, but in the specs it has been used for various things,
often a derogatory term for a URI which might change. How are you
using it here? To mean the URI of a web page? To mean an " http:"
URI? If not, then why are you dealing with URIs which are not HTTP
URIs (tch, tch! :-)? If so, then why don't you think these HTTP URIs
in the semantic web are owned?
Isn't it ironic that we're quibbling on the meaning of URL? :-) I used
it to mean what web users see 99% of the time in their browser's
address bar; what they have intuitively come to understand as a URL;
what they see and hear in ads, on the news, etc. to be the address of
some site; what their friends tell them to type into the address bar;
etc. That is, the "social definition" of URL, not the academic one.
There is a degree of irony re. what a URL actually is.
One solution is to use today's understanding of a URL (albeit an
inaccurate one) as the basis for unraveling what Linked Data is about:
The Web done right, because the Web was actually supposed to be about
Linked URIs and not Linked URLs :-)
So we have the old abstraction as the new thing, if that works then fine.
A URL identifies an address.
An address is a Thing.
URIs identify things.
A URL is a URI.
A URI embodies a URL.
You can choose to use an "Address" for the Name a Thing, but just note
that when you seek physical manifestation of the description of a Thing
using a Location Constrained Name, you introduce at least one problem
when the Thing is inherently mobile (be it a Real World Object or Web
Document). Same applies to documents with multiple versions etc.
Why can't the semantic web track 'whois' information of domain
ownership, and maybe even SLL certificate information, of sites and
be aware of the social relationships, and use them intelligently?
(perhaps more safely than a human who will be confused by
http://www.microsoft.com.1000ripyouoff.crime/ ?) . It is true that
the delegation of information within a site is not typically made
explicit (though it could be with site metadata). But there is in
general a system of ownership of URIs, it seems to me, and it is
important on the SW in the social processes by which different groups
get to define what different terms mean. So "no-one can own any URI"
set off a red flag for me.
I intended it to set off a red flag :-) This is because I would like
this issue to be discussed and researched a bit more; I would like
media studies to be done on the SW as a new medium; I would like to
understand what social processes are necessary to make SW technologies
congruent with how people deal with information and with one another
through information; etc.
You need to scope this to the Linked Data aspect of the Semantic Web
project since that's the aspect that mandates de-referencable
identifiers (e.g. HTTP based URIs).
To be more specific, these days a news reporter can say "foobar.com"
on TV and expect that to mean something to most of the audience.
That's a marvel. Something more than just the string "foobar.com" is
transfered. It's the expectation that if anyone in the audience were
to type "foobar.com" into any web browser, then they would be seeing
information served by the authority associated with some topic or
entity called "foobar" as socially defined. And 99% of the audience
would be seeing the same information. What's the equivalent or
analogous of that on the SW?
Re. the Linked Data Web you have an abstraction that is devoid of data
location, representation, and access mechanism constraints. Thus, using
the TV annecdote, when they say: foobar.com I can go to my Web
enabled device and use <foobar.com> as a structured data source name
i.e. something I can query.
As more Web enabled tools understand that <foobar.com> is a URI for
something, the more they will get out of the Web in the form of value
returned to users. Ironically, I actually believe that most people
assume this is what <foobar.com> delivered during the early days of the
Web, prior to the "Web of Linked URLs" brigade inadvertently lead most
down the wrong path due to document fixation.
The Linked Data meme (imho) is an unobtrusive fix of the scenario I
describe above. Most people understand (albeit not in URI syntax) the
distinction between the Name of a Thing and the Thing itself, if they
didn't I would even be sending this email :-)
I believe--without proof and without any expertise in media and social
studies, unfortunately--that for a technology or medium at the scale
of the SW to be integrated into human society, it has to involve
money, power, control, ownership, social hierarchies, social
conventions, etc., all the stuff that are human. It has to get
"dirty". Right now, it seems just too clean to be human.
I thought I explained the dirty aspect above. We have a mess i.e., the
perception that a "Web of Linked URLs" actually exists when it is infact
it's a "Web of Linked URIs" :-) The clean part is the Linked Data meme
fix (imho) .
Kingsley
Thanks,
David
--
Regards,
Kingsley Idehen Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
President & CEO
OpenLink Software Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
