information resources was: Re: [xml-dev] more politics

Tim Bray wrote:

> > Can you provide some examples?
>
> The many millions of web pages that aren't about anything in particular
> (they contain poems, or abstract art, or whatever).  The (physical)
> robots and coke-machines and so on that can be controlled via HTTP.
>

I share your concerns, but feel myself coming around to the idea that all
HTTP URIs identify "information resources". I would like a crisp definition
of "information resource" before I'd buy into this, but might accept as a
definition something along the lines of (perhaps) "something that is capable
of emiting representations."

By this definition we might say that the URI http://example.com/Love does
not _identify_ the abstract concept of "Love" rather a specific document
about Love. Similarly we say that http://example.com/TimB/Car cannot
represent** the abstract concept of a "Car" however, is might very well
represent "Tim Bray's Car" which is capable of transmitting information such
as its current GPS coordinate, remaining gas, and inflation state of its
side airbags.

**This URI might however represent "Tim Bray's ideas about the concept of
'Car'"

Is this distinction tenable?

Jonathan