My expectation was that the combination of
  * username
  * system name
  * timestamp
is necessary for unqiue identification. 
The use of system name was necessary to avoid overlapping
timestamps, since two systems *could* have different clocks,
and a person could easily create a node from two different
systems.
Unfortunately, that is a lot of overhead for every node.
I didn't see a better solution, at the time, but I'll
happily entertain a better idea!
Eugene Eric Kim wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 23 Apr 2001, Eric Armstrong wrote:
> 
> >   1) The ID should ideally be globally unique.
> >      That requirement allows me to modify a document, while you
> >      do likewise, and merge our additions with a minimum of
> >      overlap problems. (The fact that we both created nodes in
> >      the same place creates a decidable problem: Should your
> >      change come before or after mine. But if we both create a
> >      node with the same ID, the issue is realistically
> >      undecidable: Who gets the original ID, who gets a different
> >      ID, and what happens as a consequence of changing the ID
> >      you *thought* you had created, if you are the loser.
> 
> No two people should ever create a node with the same ID.  You can get
> around this simply by attaching the user ID to the ID of every document.
> If two people are trying to merge changes to the same node, it'll
> necessarily be up to a human to resolve which addition gets merged.  I'm
> not aware of any version control system that works otherwise.
> 
> -Eugene
> 
> --
> +=== Eugene Eric Kim ===== eekim@eekim.com ===== http://www.eekim.com/ ===+
> |       "Writer's block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they        |
> +=====  can have an excuse to drink alcohol."  --Steve Martin  ===========+
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