Name: tb29552 Date: 09/14/98

This feature is to add UUID functionality to the J2SE platform by the addition of a UUID class for manipulating Leach-Salz variants.

The uuid (Universal Unique Identifier) is an XOPEN standard
for creating a globally unique id.

Quoting below from:
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9629399/apdxa.htm

"A UUID is an identifier that is unique across both space and
time[note 1], with respect to the space of all UUIDs. A UUID
can be used for multiple purposes, from tagging objects with
an extremely short lifetime, to reliably identifying very
persistent objects across a network.

The generation of UUIDs does not require a registration
authority for each single identifier. Instead, it requires a
unique value over space for each UUID generator. This
spatially unique value is specified as an IEEE 802 address,
which is usually already applied to network-connected
systems. This 48-bit address can be assigned based on
an address block obtained through the IEEE registration
authority. This UUID specification assumes the availability
of an IEEE 802 address. "(end quote)

Note 1:
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9629399/apdxa.htm#tag_foot_1


We use a UUID as an object id for each business object. These
objects could be created in different countries (i.e different web
servers ) and are replicated to many databases. The best solution
to this is the uuid. We are writing an all Java likeness to the uuid,
but since there is no 100% pure Java way to access the 48-bit IEEE
802 address (network card id) then we cannot faithfully reproduce
a true uuid.


(Review ID: 38793)
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On some systems, generating a time-space based UUID requires privileged user credentials and is not currently implemented, time, random,name and DCE are available
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