[SEEK-Taxon] guids

[Richard Pyle]

> Functionally, urn:lsid:taxaserver.org:3232:1 and
> urn:lsid:taxaserver.org:3232:2 are treated as different LSIDs.

Right -- that's how I understood it.

> Versioning gives concept authors the ability to simultaneously issue a new
> LSID to a concept which has changed, and provide a nice chain through
> which the evolution of their concept might be elucidated.   The two
> versions of the concept would have different LSIDs, and systems using
> LSIDs would clearly differentiate between them.

So...is this analagous to the "Lineage" function of the original PEET model?
Or is this a different sort of history tracking?

> If we do use the version ability of LSIDs, I think only the 'owner' of an
> LSID should be able to create a new version of it.

Hmmm...who would the "owner" be?  The person/party who authored the
publication in which it appeared (e.g., Pyle, 2003); or the person/party who
captured it electronically (e.g., ITIS)?

> And you're right, there are some issues that need resolving and you
> outline them well below
>
> a.  When is a concept a totally new concept, deserving a new GUID?
> b.  When is a concept a version of an exisiting concept?
> c.  When can you change a concept and not even give it a new version?

Yes -- that's the sort of "hair-splitting" I was driving at.  If, indeed,
these questions merely related to implementation issues that can be resolved
later, then I woun't dwell on them now.  But I can't help be feel that they
relate to the fundamental nature of what the GUID is intended to
represent -- and it seems to me that that ought to be clarified fairly early
on.

Again...if I'm jumping the gun on something, or if these issues are clear to
everyone at SEEK, then I certainly don't want to disrupt anything.  But for
my own edification, I'd like to make sure I understand where SEEK is heading
with these things, so I can maintain maximal congruency as I continue to
develop our own system.

Aloha,
Rich