RE: Parties and Partners

[Murray Maloney <murray@muzmo.com>]

I reduced the Cc list. If someone not on this list 
should have received it, please forward it. 
Klaus, let us know if you want off this thread yet.

At 01:21 PM 10/18/00 -0400, David RR Webber wrote:
>Message text written by Murray Maloney
>>Party			Any participant in market(s)
>>Partner			Parties engaged in formal agreement
>>Trading Partners	Partners conducting transactions in market(s)
>>

>I like this a lot.  I modified the trading partner slightly to remove
>the dependence on markets - it should be more open ended
>(but business related).
>
>Party           Any participant in market(s)
>Partner         Parties engaged in formal agreement
>Trading Partners        Partners conducting business transactions.

David,

'Market' is a precondition to 'business'. And more 'open-ended.'

Mentioning 'Market' creates the context for business. After all,
we are engaged in 'Creating a Single Global Electronic Market' in
which the 'Participants' engage in 'Business Transactions' between
'Parties', among whom there exist 'Partners' with business agreements, 
which may someday coalesce into 'Coalitions', 'Buying Clubs', and 'Cartels'.

As described here, being a 'Party' is a precondition to engaging in 
business on this system. That's how it works in most jurisdictions.

And we could make it even clearer if we eliminated 'Trading Partner'
and replaced it with 'Trader'. That is, 'Parties' includes everyone,
'Parters' includes 'Parties' with agreements, and 'Traders' includes
'Parties' (including 'Partners') who are transacting business.

>
>This also makes it clear that in the TA document
>we were indeed talking about Trading Partners, but that we failed
>to necessarily include Party - any participant in market.  

The 'Single Global Electronic Market' must allow any legal entity,
by merely registering in one or more market, to participate in
the global market. This more 'open-ended' notion of 'Party' must, 
in my opinion, be a part of the ebXML Architecture. Retrofitting
will be much too expensive, in time and intellectual effort. Getting
it right now is so much easier, and inexpensive.

Feedback requested.

Regards,

Murray