[OpenID] fragment identifiers

[Peter Williams]

I think I now half-understand a thread of discussion that started some while ago: addressing fragment-ids on OpenID URIs, in a FOAF/RDF context. The topic seemed to center on the question: how should the OpenID normalization function handle URI fragments?

At the time, the topic seemed to be about URI fragments being used, typically:- as references within an HTML serialization of a single web resource, allowing hyperlinking within the stream. Chain(s) of links connecting to one or more anchors, that is. I made some glib comment, as a result.

In a context of discussing microformats within an HTML stream, I had assumed folks were simply using URI fragments simply to locate the FOAF data within an HTML stream. That is, the RDF metadata representing authorization policy constraints imposed upon the web resource serialized as the bearer HTML document was based on an architecture involving (a) the FOAF extension of RDF, (b) an incidental OWL-definition of the FOAF class of RDFs, (c) microformat serialization of some actual RDF meta-data, (d) SPAQL queries of that RDF metadata, serialized in an XHTML element, and (d)  an incidental WSDL2 -description of the means of communicating the SPAQL query req/resp against that element by a (remote) query agent.

But, I'm no longer sure I understand the fragment-id issue - (1) as I know I don't fully understand the elements listed in the previous paragraph, or their interaction (2) URI-based vocabularies are a part of the RDF communities knowledge representation and handling world, independent of locating XHTML elements bearing microformatted datasets, and (3) FOAF references already assume particular forms of URI in the spec's domain-based modeling of "authorized relations amongst people".

So, what my worry is...(being pretty dumb in data and knowledge modeling)... that I'm missing a critical formal architectural component, that I'm supposed to understand (being a security specialist). If I concoct a term, there may be a missing formal model of the 'identity semantics' - assumed by the FOAF world and required when SPAQL engine queries the RDF... expressed in a microformat element of the HTML document which the FOAF-authorization policy constrains.

So, at this point, my architecturally-challenged brain now wonders... is there a more  fundamental issue about fragmentids in OpenID at stake? 

For example: the normalized OpenID shall have certain form -- aligned with OpenID-specific  'identity semantics' -- specifically in order that the OpenID URI is used consistently when one makes statements in the "URI vocabulary" defined by the "OpenID-profiled, FOAF extension of" RDF?