unambiguous URI - *not*
2008-02-29 @ 22:57#
a post by Roy T. Fielding hits the nail right on the head. he calls out the W3c TAG list for what they claim is a 'key requirement' for the Semantic Web:
A key requirement of the Semantic Web is that URIs be used to identify resources unambiguously.
he points out that this is quite against the spirit of the Web that TimBL has in mind - calling up a quote from TimBL himself:
I don’t want the Web to constrain what people do: the Web is not there to constrain society. It’s there to model society in its completeness, in its entirety.
[Tim Berners-Lee, 1994]
and wrapping it up with his own poke:
On the Web, millions of people mint URIs, and millions more use them in references. Millions of human beings, conversing over time, with an occasional URI thrown in to refer to a subject under discussion.
When was the last time you had an unambiguous discussion?