On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Greg Von Kuster <greg@bx.psu.edu> wrote:
The tool shed forces unique repository names per user account, allowing for uniqueness with that combination. All tools uploaded into a tool shed repository are assigned a unique id called a guid, which is unique for all tools across all possible tool sheds. These guids follow a named spacing convention that ensures that any tool installed into any Galaxy instance will be uniquely identified regardless of "old" tool ids or tool versions.
... The "old" id is still important and must be included in the tool config as usual, but is not used to identify a tool that is installed in a repository from the tool shed.
Ah - so the "old" tool ID clashes are only going to be a problem with Galaxy servers where the tools were installed 'the old fashioned way' (like ours). So there is still scope for clashes with shared workflows - but this will be less and less of a problem as local Galaxy installs switch to installing tools via the Tool Shed? What happens if (for example) Brad gives Lance commit rights to his repository (or the other way round)? Then you'd have a clash.
All of these details are explained in the tool shed wiki in the following section.
http://wiki.g2.bx.psu.edu/Tool%20Shed#Automatic_installation_of_Galaxy_tool_...
This section is also relevant to this discussion.
Thanks for the background. Peter