[sc34wg3] Subject Locators

[Lars Marius Garshol]

* Jan Algermissen
| 
| When you have a resource that has the intended semantics of some
| person 'Jim Smith' and
| NOT some kind of document about him;
| 
| what is the meaning of
| 
| <topic id="t1">
|    <subjectIdentity>
|      <resourceRef xlink:href="http://example.org/persons/Jim_Smith"/>
|    </subjectIdentity>
| </topic>
| 
| then?
| 
| The topic represents Jim Smith - right?

No, it does not. It represents what you get by dereferencing the URI,
which can't be Jim Smith, but has to be an information resource of
some kind.

Looking at the wording in TMDM again it seems as though we should
probably tweak the wording a bit to make it clear that we by "a
locator that refers to" is not what the URI references, but what you
get by dereferencing it. (Given that in W3C land what a URI references
is not necessarily the same as what you get by dereferencing it, this
may need to be spelled out. The same goes for the wording, which does
indeed sounds somewhat as though we change the semantics of the URIs.)

So if you wanted a topic representing Jim Smith you'd be better off
with (in XTM 1.1)

<topic>
   <subjectIdentity>
     <subjectIndicatorRef xlink:href="http://example.org/persons/Jim_Smith"/>
   </subjectIdentity>
</topic>

or, if that URI doesn't produce anything related to Jim Smith when
dereferenced: 

<topic>
   <subjectIdentity>
     <subjectIndicatorRef xlink:href="http://psi.example.org/persons/Jim_Smith"/>
   </subjectIdentity>
</topic>

-- 
Lars Marius Garshol, Ontopian         <URL: http://www.ontopia.net >
GSM: +47 98 21 55 50                  <URL: http://www.garshol.priv.no >