More trimming of material onprovenance interpretation
authorGraham Klyne
Thu, 21 Feb 2013 17:27:05 +0000
changeset 5671 6c7dc767652a
parent 5670 be8f6ec8a2d5
child 5672 ba92fdab458b
More trimming of material onprovenance interpretation
paq/prov-aq.html
--- a/paq/prov-aq.html	Thu Feb 21 15:57:28 2013 +0000
+++ b/paq/prov-aq.html	Thu Feb 21 17:27:05 2013 +0000
@@ -317,7 +317,7 @@
             </dd>
             <dt>provenance <a href="#dfn-provider"><dfn>provider</dfn></a></dt>
             <dd>
-              is an agent that makes available provenance descriptions.
+              is an agent that makes available provenance records.
             </dd>
             <dt>provenance <a href="#dfn-consumer"><dfn>consumer</dfn></a></dt>
             <dd>
@@ -359,22 +359,19 @@
           Also, review second para below.  Move definition of provider/consumer to concepts section?
         </p>
         <p>
-          The mechanisms described in this document are intended to allow a provider to supply information to enable a consumer to access provenance records.  The provenance records themselves explicitly identify the entities they describe.
+          The mechanisms described in this document are intended to allow a provider to supply information that allows a consumer to access <a class="internalDFN">provenance record</a>s, which themselves explicitly identify the <a class="internalDFN" href="#dfn-entity">entities</a> they describe.
+          A provenance record may contain information about several entities, referring to them using their various <a class="internalDFN">entity-URI</a>s.
+          Thus a consumer should be selective in its use of the information provided when interpreting a provenance record.
         </p>
         <p>
-          Any <a class="internalDFN">provenance record</a> may contain information about several <a class="internalDFN" href="#dfn-entity">entities</a>, referring to them using their various <a class="internalDFN">entity-URI</a>s.
-          Thus, when interpreting provenance records, it is important to be aware that statements about several entities may be present, and to be accordingly selective when using the information provided.
-          (Further, the provenance record returned may contain <em>no</em> information about the specific entity for which the request was made.)
+          A provenance record consumer will need to isolate information about the specific entity or entities of interest.  These may be <a class="internalDFN">constrained resource</a>s identified by separate entity-URIs than the original resource, in which case it will need to know about the entity-URIs used. The mechanisms defined later allow a provider to expose such URIs.
         </p>
         <p>
-          Thus, the consumer of a provenance record will need to isolate information about the specific entity or entities of interest.  These may be <a class="internalDFN">constrained resource</a>s identified by separate entity-URIs than the original resource, in which case it will need to know about the entity-URI used.
+          While a provider should avoid giving spurious information, there are no fixed semantics, particularly when multiple resources are indicated, and a client should not assume that a specific given provenance-URI will yield information about a specific entity-URI.  In the general case, a client presented with multiple provenance-URIs and multiple entity-URIs should look at all of the provenance-URIs for information about any or all of the entity-URIs.
         </p>
         <p>
           A provenance record is not of itself guaranteed to be authoritative or correct. Trust in provenance records must be determined separately from trust in the original resource. Just as in the web at large, it is a user's responsibility to determine an appropriate level of trust in any other resource; e.g. based on the domain that serves it, or an associated digital signature. (See also <a href="#security-considerations" class="sectionRef"></a>.)
         </p>
-        <p>
-          While a provider should avoid giving spurious information, there are no fixed semantics, particularly when multiple resources are indicated, and a client should not assume that a specific given provenance-URI will yield information about a specific entity-URI.  In the general case, a client presented with multiple provenance-URIs and multiple entity-URIs should look at all of the provenance-URIs for information about any or all of the entity-URIs.
-        </p>
       </section>
 
       <section>