[Fwd: [Specify Project News] Specify 6.5 and GUIDS, Request for Quick Comment]

[Steve Baskauf]

I don't use Specify but I'm on the mailing list and got the email quoted below.  When I got to the last part which said "The Specify 6.5 updater will overwrite any existing user-specified GUID values within a Specify database to a new value with the UUID format as shown above." I couldn't believe that it was for real.  They are really going to overwrite existing user-specified GUIDs with a new UUID??? This seems to me to be the antithesis of the best practice that persistent identifiers/GUIDs be reused whenever possible.  If I had gone to the trouble of reusing GUIDs in my database (which unfortunately not many people seem to have done), the last thing I would want would be for some software to automatically overwrite my values. 

Since I don't currently use Specify and am not very familiar with how it operates any more, I may be misunderstanding this, but if I am interpreting this correctly it seems like a really terrible thing and the polar opposite of best practice.  Generating UUIDs should only be an option and there should be capabilities built into the software to reuse any form of extant persistent identifiers.

Steve

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	[Specify Project News] Specify 6.5 and GUIDS, Request for Quick Comment
Date:	Fri, 19 Jul 2013 18:09:48 +0000
From:	Beach, James H. <be...@ku.edu>
To:	speci...@mailman.nhm.ku.edu <speci...@mailman.nhm.ku.edu>

Hello --

 

The Specify Software Project within a few days will release Specify 6.5 a major version update with a several new capabilities for managing and viewing images and other type of file attachments.

In addition the Specify 6.5 update installer will implement Global Unique Identifiers or GUIDs using 128-bit Universally Unique Identifiers, or UUIDs which have this format:

bf3066d2-c088-47c8-b279-e7941463a65f0.  (See:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier for technical information on UUIDs.)

Using GUIDs allows computer applications and databases to identify unique records easily throughout the global biodiversity enterprise. As more biological information systems use GUID/UUID's it will become possible for software platforms to instantly recognize when globally-exchanged information has been updated or duplicated.

GUID values will not be visible on Specify’s data forms unless GUID fields are added to existing data form layouts but they will, like any other data field, always be accessible for queries, exporting, printing, etc.

The Specify 6.5 update will automatically assign permanent GUID values to the “GUID” field in each of these Specify data tables:

• Agent
• Attachment
• Collection
• Collecting Event
• Collection Object
• Determination
• Geography (GUID field not to be assigned values)
• Geologic Time Period
• Institution
• Journal
• Litho Stratigraphy
• Locality
• Reference Work
• Taxon (GUID field not to be assigned values)

 

The Specify 6.5 updater will overwrite any existing user-specified GUID values within a Specify database to a new value with the UUID format as shown above.

 

We are interested to know if the automatic assignment of permanent GUID values to these data objects, and the replacement of any existing information in those GUID fields will break any installation’s current use of Specify’s GUID fields for data integration/sharing/updates, etc.

 

 

 

Many thanks,

 

Jim B.

 

Specify Software Project

Biodiversity Institute

University of Kansas

1345 Jayhawk Boulevard

Lawrence, KS 66044 USA

 

Office: 785-864-4645

Cell: 785-331-8508

 

-- 
Steven J. Baskauf, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer
Vanderbilt University Dept. of Biological Sciences

postal mail address:
PMB 351634
Nashville, TN  37235-1634,  U.S.A.

delivery address:
2125 Stevenson Center
1161 21st Ave., S.
Nashville, TN 37235

office: 2128 Stevenson Center
phone: (615) 343-4582,  fax: (615) 322-4942
If you fax, please phone or email so that I will know to look for it.
http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu

[Paul J. Morris]

On Sun, 21 Jul 2013 07:57:41 -0500
Steve Baskauf <steve....@vanderbilt.edu> wrote:
> I don't use Specify but I'm on the mailing list and got the email
> quoted below. When I got to the last part which said "The Specify
> 6.5 updater will overwrite any existing user-specified GUID values
> within a Specify database to a new value with the UUID format as
> shown above." I couldn't believe that it was for real.

A lot of us pinged Jim Beach on this issue, and he's changed his mind
on this element of the proposal. Specify's 6.5 updater won't be
overwriting any existing GUID values.

http://sourceforge.net/p/specify/code/11233/

-Paul
--
Paul J. Morris
Biodiversity Informatics Manager
Harvard University Herbaria/Museum of Comparative Zoölogy
mo...@morris.net AA3SD PGP public key available