RE: infoURI standard officially blessed

From: Hammond, Tony <T.Hammond_at_nature.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 17:47:55 -0000

Sorry - but just don't buy it.

I also remember the Web (yeah, from way back when, then - when it was fun
:).

Difference being (between our apparent positions) is that I _am_ a believer.
But in URI. Please, please, do not confound deref (the clickability thing -
that blue touchline) with the naming of things. To quote self (oh, and how
do I love to):

        "When referencing an information asset by means of its "info" URI,
the asset SHALL be considered a "resource" as defined in RFC 3896 [RFC3896]
and SHALL enjoy the same common syntactic, semantic and shared language
benefits that the URI presentation confers."

That's what a URI means. It does _not_mean that you need a browser plugin or
extra code or anything else. All it means is that if you find a string used
in a URI context which is conformant to URI syntax as governed by (you know
what) then everythng is hunky dory. One can either offer service against
said URI (having proved that it has a valid structure) or one can simply say
"Nopes - recognize you guy but don't know how to field". I am beginning to
wonder if there are indeed _any_ applications out there that recognize URIs
without having something hardwired into 'em. (Btw, I don't believe in
browsers.)

Frankly, I'm getting a teensy weensy bit tired of this. Let's choose: HTTP
or URI. I'm backing URI.

Cheers,

Tony

Ps/
If I sound stroppy - I am. It's 17.42 and black as coal outside. Take care
of yous.





> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stefano Mazzocchi [mailto:stefanom_at_mit.edu]
> Sent: 14 November 2005 17:21
> To: general_at_simile.mit.edu
> Subject: Re: infoURI standard officially blessed
>
>
> Hammond, Tony wrote:
>
> [snipped a bunch of stuff]
>
> > 6. Variety is good. I will certainly not support a cull to one
> > species of URI alone - 'http'. It makes no sense to the information
> > eco-system. Get real. Deal with it.
>
> Don't know about you, but I value diversity when it gives me
> something,
> not just because.
>
> For example, I have no problems in the fact that all TCP/IP stacks of
> all operating systems talk to each other. I have no problems
> that I can
> buy an ethernet card or wi-fi router from all vendors and they work
> together. I have no problems in having all SMTP servers
> behave or having
> all HTTP servers use the same protocol.
>
> I do have a problem when I can't read files because they are
> sent with
> proprietary formats, or when different browsers implements the
> recommendations differently forcing me to work around them.
>
> I am dealing with diversity, every day, and I like less not more when
> the diversity is introduced by nothing but ego reasons and
> "not invented
> here" or "I don't want others to control my registries"
>
> I'm one of the board directors of the Apache Software Foundation. The
> web exists not only because of HTTP but because Apache, and not
> Microsoft, has 70% of the web servers running.
>
> I don't think you realize how much effort went in making the
> web what it
> is today. You take for granted that a similar interoperable ecosystem
> would emerge naturally in a different identification, lookup and
> transport scheme. We'll see who needs to get real.
>
> URNs make it easy to name things, but you pay a price later
> on, when you
> don't know what to do with them or, when, in order to find
> out, you have
> to code around a bunch of little inconsistencies and bugs from the
> lookup and discovery systems and then the transport protocols.
>
> I'd much rather invest on automatically dereferenceable URIs now and
> avoid paying the discoverability price (not only the
> technical one but
> also the social one!) later on.
>
> As for what others will do, well, we'll deal with it, as
> usual and try
> to make sense out of it.
>
> Just allow me to express my frustration as a developer for
> yet another
> specification that makes my job harder and not easier. And for no
> particular reason rather than control.
>
> --
> Stefano Mazzocchi
> Research Scientist Digital Libraries Research Group
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology location: E25-131C
> 77 Massachusetts Ave telephone: +1 (617) 253-1096
> Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 email: stefanom at mit . edu
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>

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Received on Mon Nov 14 2005 - 17:41:55 EST