URI-based identifiers

Network configuration with RDF

RDF uses URIs [1] to identify the things it describes

Fits with Web and Internet protocols that use URIs to identify network resources
URIs can identify other resources, such as people, network hosts, etc
URIs also identify relationships between resources
The form of URI appropriate for different purposes is debatable, but RDF is agnostic about this

QName representation

Following the conventions introduced by XML namespaces [2], a URI is sometimes abbreviated as a QName prefix:localname

prefix is associated with some namespace URI.

RDF takes a QName to represent the URI formed by the concatenation of the namespace URI and the localname .

Another way of identifying a resource is "by description"

e.g. a person described by their mailbox or homepage URI rather than a directly assigned URI: