On Wed, 13 Jun 2001, Andy Powell wrote:
> > I believe the fundamental issue is: to what class of objects does our
> > vocabulary refer? Is the term "resource" broad enough to cover
> > "people" ("agents")?
>
> I very much agree that this is a fundamental issue - and one that is
> crucial to DCMI. I'm amazed that DCMI doesn't have an agreed definition
> for 'resource'. It's not a UB issue however?
My suspicion is that we never would have come as far as we have if we
had stopped to discuss a definition of "resource" -- like the millipede
who never again could walk after someone asked him how he did it.
I would suggest that our de-facto definition of "resource" is currently
circular: "any entity describable by Dublin Core properties".
It is definitely a UB issue to decide what our scope is. Does that
scope refer to "resources"? Then we need to decide what our notion of
resources encompasses. In the case of Agents, seen as entities with
properties, we need to ask: are those properties within the scope of
the vocabularies we maintain? Or do they belong in a completely
different vocabulary? Or (what I really suspect) is there messy
overlap? What, then, is our pragmatic stand with regard to agent
properties submitted for UB Recommendation?
Tom
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Dr. Thomas Baker [log in to unmask]
GMD Library
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