Quote:
Originally Posted by kovidgoyal
The problem with electronic documents is that they are infintely copyable. Any reading ssytem that labors under the delusion that every file it ever encounters will have a unique id is not going to get very far. For example a user may change the file name of an epub file and copy two copies onto his reader. The whole idea of unique ids is aholdover from print publishing that needs to go away. A unique id belongs to a *book* not to a file.
If the user specifies an ISBN calibre will always produce it. Or are you suggesting calibre manufacture random ISBNs?
Again, so what?
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You're mixing things up: first of all, unique identifiers are not something from the "print world", we use URI every day to identify resources.
Basically from what I can guess, with Calibre you're using an identifier that you increment every time that a file is generated (1, 2, 3 etc.). Instead you could generate a UUID, which would still work internally with the way you handle books but wouldn't be as likely to confuse a reading system.
Of course you don't have to generate a ISBN, it wouldn't make any sense.