Web resource: Difference between revisions

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A '''web resource''' is any identifiable resource (digital, physical, or abstract) present on or connected to the [[World Wide Web]].<ref name="rfc3986">[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986 RFC 3986 Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax]</ref><ref name="fielding_dissertation">[https://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/top.htm Roy T. Fielding's Dissertation]</ref><ref name="uri_identify">[https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/HTTP-URI.html What do HTTP URIs Identify?], by [[Tim Berners-Lee]]</ref> Resources are identified using [[Uniform Resource Identifier]]s (URIs).<ref name="rfc3986" /><ref name="rfc1738">RFC 1738 Uniform Resource Locators (URL)</ref> In the [[Semantic Web]], web resources and their semantic properties are described using the [[Resource Description Framework]] (RDF).<ref name="rdf_index">[https://www.w3.org/standards/techs/rdf RDF Current Status]</ref>

The concept of a web ''resource'' has evolved during the Web's history, from the early notion of static addressable [[Electronic document|document]]s or [[Computer file|file]]s, to a more generic and abstract definition, now encompassing every "thing" or [[wikt:entity|entity]] that can be identified, named, addressed or handled, in any way whatsoever, in the web at large, or in any networked information system. The declarative aspects of a resource (identification and naming) and its functional aspects (addressing and technical handling) weren't clearly distinct in the early specifications of the web, and the very definition of the concept has been the subject of long and still open debate involving difficult, and often arcane, technical, social, linguistic and philosophical issues.

== From documents and files to web resources ==

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RDF also specifies the definition of anonymous resources or [[blank node]]s, which are not absolutely identified by URIs.

===Using HTTP URIs to identify abstract resources===

Website_takedown

[[URL]]s, particularly [[uniform resource identifier|HTTP URI]]s, are frequently used to identify abstract resources, such as classes, properties or other kind of concepts. Examples can be found in RDFS or OWL [[Ontology (computer science)|ontologies]]. Since such URIs are associated with the HTTP protocol, the question arose of which kind of representation, if any, should one get for such resources through this protocol, typically using a web browser, and if the syntax of the URI itself could help to differentiate "abstract" resources from "information" resources. The URI specifications such as RFC 3986 left to the protocol specification the task of defining actions performed on the resources and they do not provide any answer to this question. It had been suggested that an HTTP URI identifying a resource in the original sense, such as a file, document, or any kind of so-called information resource, should be "slash" URIs — in other words, should not contain a [[fragment identifier]], whereas a URI used to identify a concept or abstract resource should be a "hash" URI using a fragment identifier.

For example: <code><nowiki>http://www.example.org/catalogue/widgets.html</nowiki></code> would both identify and locate a web page (maybe providing some human-readable description of the widgets sold by Silly Widgets, Inc.) whereas <code><nowiki>http://www.example.org/ontology#Widget</nowiki></code> would identify the abstract concept or class "Widget" in this company ontology, and would not necessarily retrieve any physical resource through [[HTTP protocol]]. But it has been answered that such a distinction is impossible to enforce in practice, and famous standard vocabularies provide counter-examples widely used. For example, the [[Dublin Core]] concepts such as "title", "publisher", "creator" are identified by "slash" URIs like <code><nowiki>http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/title</nowiki></code>.

The general question of which kind of resources HTTP URI should or should not identify has been formerly known in W3C as the [http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/issues.html#httpRange-14 httpRange-14] issue, following its name on the list defined by the (TAG). The TAG delivered in 2005 a final answer to this issue, making the distinction between an "information resource" and a "non-information" resource dependent on the type of answer given by the server to a "GET" request:

* [[HTTP 200#2xx success|2xx Success]] indicates resource is an information resource.

* [[HTTP 303|303 See Other]] indicates the resource could be informational or abstract; the redirection target could tell you.

* [[List of HTTP status codes#4xx client errors|4xx Client Error]] provides no information at all.

This allows vocabularies (like [[Dublin Core]], [[FOAF]], and [[Wordnet]]) to continue to use slash instead of hash for pragmatic reasons. While this compromise seems to have met a consensus in the Semantic Web community, some of its prominent members such as [[Patrick J. Hayes|Pat Hayes]] have expressed concerns both on its technical feasibility and conceptual foundation. According to Patrick Hayes' viewpoint, the very distinction between "information resource" and "other resource" is impossible to find and should better not be specified at all, and [[ambiguity]] of the referent resource is inherent to URIs like to any naming mechanism.

===Resource ownership, intellectual property and trust===

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==See also==

*[[Address bar]]

*[[Resource (computer science)]]

*[[Resource-oriented architecture]] (ROA)

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**[http://www.w3.org/2006/04/irw65/urisym.html A Pragmatic Theory of Reference for the Web], by [[Dan Connolly (computer scientist)|Dan Connolly]].

**[http://www.ibiblio.org/hhalpin/irw2006/presentations/HayesSlides.pdf In Defense of Ambiguity], by [[Patrick J. Hayes|Patrick Hayes]].

*[http://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/Publications/CEUR-WS//Vol-201/43.pdf Towards an OWL ontology for identity on the web], by Valentina Presutti and Aldo Gangemi, [http://swapconf.it/2006/ SWAP2006 conference] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061224214413/http://www.swapconf.it/2006/ |date=2006-12-24 }}.

{{refend}}