From: "Hilmar Lapp" <hl...@duke.edu>
Nor do people outside of libraries care about identifiers.
You might be surprised: http://www.lsrn.org/
yes, I overstated, let me rephrase. There are communities who are
interested in specific object classes and want identifier schemes for them.
For libraries there are books, article, journals, and many others. And
certainly this isn't limited to libraries, for example many scientific
disciplines have a similar interest in identifer schemes for objects in
specific object classes.
But the term "identifier" has taken on a whole new meaning with the web.
It has now been generalized to identify any "resouce", and we don't even
have a clear definition of resource, aside from the convoluted "anything
that can be identified" - The discussions on this are often a convoluted
mess, and it's no wonder location and identity get confused. And because
of all the emphasis on solving this part of the web architecture - which
haven't been accomplished, and there is debate within the W3C whether it is
even possible - the original concept of identifer seems to be lost, aside
from within the communities I alluded to above. And it is for those
communities that the info URI is useful.
Now as to my reference to "religious issues", a statement like "Having
unresolvable URIs is anti-Web" would be better to stated as: "Having
unresolvable URIs IN MY OPINION is anti-Web". It is an opinion, not a fact.
Stating is as fact is dogmatic. It is a reasonable opinion, however, my
opinion: "Having unresolvable URIs IN MY OPINION is PRO-Web" is just as
reasonable. I needn't go into further detail, we've beaten this to death
already.
--Ray
