[legalxml-econtracts] Two Document Types Defined

[John McClure <jmcclure@hypergrove.com>]

From our last phone call, it appears that there are two (2) separate types of
documents that this group would like to standardize. This memo is about
circumscribing the scope of these different types of documents.

1. Contract Document
	This document contains nothing but the contract, with the exception of
	(1) optional links to a "Policy Document" and to stylesheets; and
	(2) optional Dublin Core metadata.

2. Policy Document
	This document contains the negotiating parameters that one side of a
negotiation would like
	to share with the other, as well as certain workflow information.

	This document contains current forecast numbers, minimum, maximum, and average
numbers
	for key contract provisions, expressed as they will be in dollars or days; what
goods, premises,
	or other items are negotiable and which are not; what clauses have been agreed
to in principle
	vs those agreed specifically; what new information is in the contract given a
previous draft;
	what the negotiating timeline must be; what the contact information is for each
of the negotiators;
	the set 	of minimum information (the "contract parameters") that must be
marked-up in the contract;
	a link to governing law for the contract; statements of alternative clauses;
and other items.

My understanding from the call is that forthcoming requirements statements will
be focusing on the content of the "Policy Document", not a "Contract" document.

Again, I'd like to see a Contract be legally=acceptable whether encoded in
XHTML, XSL-FO, SVG, or whatever dialect is appropriate to its creating
application, perhaps an application specifically chosen by the parties to the
contract. I continue to believe that it is not within the scope of LegalXML to
dictate what encoding must be used for contracts, in the face of available
techniques such as annotating an XML element with a legal:names attribute which
contains a representation of structured XML elements, e.g., <xxxx
legal:names='Contract.Party.FirstName.en'>John</xxxx>.

That said, the encoding of a <ContractPolicy> element is well-within the purview
of this group. Comments?
John