For Tuesday mtg -- collaborations (shortish)

[James Bryce Clark <jbc@lawyer.com>]

This message is about collaborations.  There is another one about REA.  

Bearing in mind that we should only do things in 1.0 that we can thoroughly
understand between now and March 19th:

     1.     I think we want the BP SS to allow the formation of rudimentary
contracts.  That means assembly of economic commitments into an agreed set
and identified as legally binding.  

     2.     We need at least two things to do that.  One is nested
collaborations, the other is some kind of conditional relationship between
transactions.   Everyone seems to agree on the former, so I'm assuming
nested collaborations are a given.   The rest of this message is about
conditionality.

     3.     A month ago we were discussing the conditionality issue in
terms of transaction end-states and pre-conditions.   You will recall that
Bob Haugen  described three or four levels of functionality here, ranging
from simple ("1") fixed-string messages to ("3") full-blown modelled
multiparty signals.  

     3.     As you know from documents sent around, Haugen and Welsh and
Sharma and I have been testing the possibility of achieving some simple
level of functionality at the ("1") level, using simple request-response
patterns, and a "legal" or "binding" data element.    

     6.     In January Karsten (and I, and others) thought that it would be
beyond our reach to carefully and responsibly roll out levels "2", or "2
plus", or "3" in the right weeks remaining until March 19th.    As I
understand Karsten's comments Monday and (to the extent I have been able to
digest them) e-mails late Monday, he is proposing a "2 plus" system, to be
fully worked out in the three weeks remaining until March 19th.   I am
concerned that I agree with January Karsten, not February Karsten, about
what's achievable in the time remaining.  

      7.   While there may be great merit in the materials sent around last
night at 11:30 pm, which I have not yet fully digested, I am not keen on
leaving behind both the "collaboration" work done in November, and the work
we have been doing over the last three or four weeks, to start again today
based on a new intellectual platform.  I would like to discuss this at
today's conference call.

Jamie
 
James Bryce Clark
Spolin Silverman & Cohen LLP 
310 586 2404    jbc@lawyer.com