Donald and all,

However there is probably insufficient benefit for us to gain from having a system where strong GUIDs are assigned to every taxon concept that any provider wishes to reference.

Exrepssion "every taxon concept" implies that we can establish identity of taxon concept. I don't think it is possible execpt potential taxon sensu Brendsohn (1995), i.e. combination of name string and publication. What we need for the benefit 3 is not GUID of 'each' taxcon cocnept but a mechanism to give an approxiamtion of a taxon concept/taxon concepts (I'm not convince how can I count taxon concepts) can be used as a granule.

JMS -- Dr. Nozomi "James" Ytow Institute of Biological Sciences / Gene research center University of Tsukuba Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8572 Japan