WebURIOpinions

Also: WebURIArchitectures, httpRange-14 webography

The question of proper use of 200 responses is a 'permathread'. I'm told the debate leading to the 2005 "httpRange-14 resolution" was some 3000 messages.

There are a number of different positions at variance with web architecture, some pragmatic (# and 303 are too hard), some ontological (what is an information resource anyhow), some logical (how does the representation relate to the referent of the URI).

Here are some statements, most of them made in the latest round.

Harry Halpin
From email sent 20 Jan 2011:

[Re hash:] To be blunt, people forget to put it there when writing and cut and pasting URIs, and it's applied inconsistently across the XML and RDF universes. It puts a magic redirect in where one isn't necessary to begin with.

[Re 303:]
 * 1) It's doing in a status code that which could easily be done in some triples themselves accessed from the URI.
 * 2) It causes excessive round-trips/redirects for no good reasons, which irritates webmasters and bots.
 * 3) It is non-trivial to set up via Apache
 * 4) And most webmasters can't even do that, so it makes just putting a RDF file on the Web a "bad thing" without access. Great for adoption :)
 * 5) It's not a standard. It's on no W3C Recs. It's a W3C TAG finding, and primarily something Tim wrote in a design note that got put forth by SWEO as Note. So there's no process to go through to change it to begin with.
 * 6) The only practical example of code failing by lack of using it involves "owl:sameAs" and OWL reasoning, and owl:sameAs is demonstrably mis-used anyways (see paper in ISWC 2010) and OWL reasoning of any kind is not used often with Linked Data to begin with.

Ian Davis
Ian Davis is RDF WG co-chair.

From Is 303 Really Necessary?, blog post 3 Nov 2010

Data in the [200] response to the GET should be taken at face value.

Ed Summers
From Linking things and common sense, blog post 7 Jul 2010:

"We should be able to tell if the thing being described is a document or a real world thing based on the vocabulary terms that are being used." ... "If a representation [retrieved using the URI] is some sort of flavor of RDF, the semantics of an RDF vocabulary should make it clear what is being described [what the URI is meant to refer to]."

(The misunderstanding is in part that it is the IR/non-IR distinction that matters, not the relationship between the representation and the referent.)

Also http://inkdroid.org/journal/2010/11/08/routers-webcams-and-thermometers/

Tom Scott
From Linked things, blog post 1 July 2010:

Is there much utility in defining non-information resources in this third scenario: do you need URIs for the documents? Obviously they still need a URL so you can link to it and you should make that document available in a variety of representations but do you need a separate identifier for the non-information resource?

Manu Sporny
Manu Sporny is RDFa WG co-chair.

From email sent 16 Jan 2011:

My fear is that if we continue pushing [Cool URIs for the Semantic Web] and the HTTP Range 14 decision that developers will likely continue to view the Semantic Web as an over-engineered solution to a problem that they rarely care about... and I wouldn't blame them if they were to do that. We can't change developer workflow as drastically as the SemWeb Cool URIs proposes - especially when it is unnecessary to do so.

Lisa Dusseault
Lisa Dussealt is IETF Applications Area Director.

From email sent 29 Jan 2009:

Sunk cost argument. The cost of continuing to implement and maintain this architectural decision, if I understand it correctly, are hugely huger.

... I still haven't followed the logic for how 303s make the world a better place. Conversely, I haven't followed the logic for why 200s in GET responses for URIs registered as link relations, is bad.

Chimezie Ogbuji
From email sent 25 Nov 2007:

I really would like to see/understand the empirical evidence that indicates the 'harm' that URL does in its current state (perhaps I can dig through some older httpRange-14 threads to find that). Has any laptop suffered a shortage in its circuit that led to a civil suit due to liability etc..,

Xiaoshu Wang
Xiaoshu was one of the more outspoken voices when the debate continued in 2007.

Sample of his writing on the subject

Roy Fielding
Roy and TimBL had argued opposing views before the 2005 decision. If you read Roy's 'modern web architecture' writings you'll see a hint to use "x is a representation of y" to mean something very similar to "x is a description of y". (TimBL's position was always that HTTP 'resources' (later 'information resources') were all document-like. No wonder the HTTP spec they coauthored takes no position on the question!)

See blog post Are you confused yet about the word “representation”? for references.

Jamendo
Here's a case "in the wild": Album 'landing page' - the URI is used to refer to the album, not the landing page.