Re: PROV-ISSUE-1 (define-resource): Definition for concept 'Resource' [Provenance Terminology]

Hi Graham
I am coming back to an earlier comment of yours, see below.

On 24 May 2011, at 12:16, "Graham Klyne" <GK@ninebynine.org> wrote:

> Hi Luc,
> 
> Luc Moreau wrote:
>> Hi Graham,
>> Responses interleaved.
> 
> Ditto...
> 
>> On 05/24/2011 10:12 AM, Graham Klyne wrote:
>>> Luc Moreau wrote:
>>>> Dear all,
>>>> 
>>>> I am pleased to see that some definitions are being uploaded on the wiki; in particular, I see definitions of resources, which I would
>>>> like to begin debating during the teleconference this week.
>>>> 
>>>> For now, I just use this definition:
>>>> 
>>>> A resource can be anything that might be identified by URI
>>>> 
>>>> Going back to the Data Journalism example [1], it is not entirely clear
>>>> that such a notion of resource encapsulates all the "data entities" that
>>>> we find here.    I can see r1 and r2 being resources.
>>>> 
>>>> However, what about f1, which, for instance, could have been generated
>>>> by an xslt transform over d1. f1 could be a file on the local file system, which then
>>>> is made available later as a resource r1.
>>>> 
>>>> Likewise, lcp1 is a local copy of a serialization of r1.  Again, lcp1 could be a file
>>>> on the file system.
>>>> 
>>>> Are lcp1 and f1 resources?
>>> 
>>> > [1] http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/wiki/ProvenanceExample
>>> 
>>> My default answers would be "Yes" and "Yes", in that they might indeed be identified by URIs, even if they are not generally accessible using those URIs (e.g. lcp1 being a local copy).
>>> 
>>> Less clear to me, looking at the example, is whether f1 ("published RDF data") is the same as r1 ("rdf data available as a web resource").  Reading the description, I would be inclined to say that are the same resource, but I can see some scope for differing interpretations depending on the intent here.
>> Joe Blog may have /home/joe/lcp1.rdf on his file system, and Joe Blog2 may also have a different file /home/joe/lcp1.rdf
>> at the same location on his own computer. So the file path does not identify the resource. Would you force the minting
>> of new unique URIs for every local resource?
> 
> I would not.  The definition says *might* be identified by a URI.  In in these cases, I think the possibility of such identification exists, even if no URI has actually been minted.  And any such URI that might be used is not necessarily related to the file system path.  For example, they could be a urn:uuid: URIs (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4122.txt).


To clarify a point here.  Are you saying that a resource could be anonymous (I.e, non identified)? But by the very fact we could have given it a URI, it is indeed a resource as per this definition.


Luc



> 
> A related example is real numbers, including non-rationals.  These are sometimes treated as resources, even though it is not possible to mint a (finite) URI for every such number.  But it *is* possible to mint a unique URI for any particular number that one chooses to identify for some purpose.
> 
>> Also, I would suggest to refer to the emerging RDF terminology:
>> http://www.w3.org/2011/rdf-wg/wiki/GraphConceptTerminology
>> lcp1 seems to be a g-text (a turtle serialization).
> 
> I don't think there's a need or purpose to invoke that terminology here.
> 
> Just consider, for the sake of discussion, a slight revision of the example:
> 
> government (gov) converts data (d1) to XML (f1) at time (t1)
> government (gov) generates provenance information (prov) regarding XML (f1)
> government (gov) publishes XML data (f1) along with its provenance (prov) on a portal with a license (li1); the XML data is now available as a Web resource (r1)
> :
> 
> I think the example makes just as much sense with RDF replaced by XML, but the RDF terminology does not apply to XML data.  And, by the way, I think this revised example also represents a use-case that we MUST be able to support (except that instead of talking about Turle and RDF/XML serializations, we might talk about text/XML vs EXI (http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/REC-exi-20110310/) serializations.
> 
>>> 
>>>> Can we classify all the "data entities" in group, with same properties?
>>>> What are these classes?
>>> 
>>> Do you mean formally classify in an ontological sense, or informally as in indicating the intent and differences between the labelled entities?  The latter might be illuminating, but I sense the possibility of a tar pit here if we push too hard.
>> I meant informally at this stage.
> 
> Good.
> 
> #g
> --
> 
> 
>>> The AWWW discusses a subclass of resources called "information resources", but this distinction isn't universally appreciated.  It has been used as part of the long-running "http-range-14" discussion [2].  I think this distinction, in some form, might be relevant to the example.
>>> 
>>> [2] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/issues.html#httpRange-14
>>> 
>>> #g
>>> -- 
>>> 
>>> 
>> Luc
>

Received on Tuesday, 24 May 2011 22:45:26 UTC