[ebBP] 10/26/2004: "isLegallyBinding" Attribute Description

["Monica J. Martin" <Monica.Martin@Sun.COM>]

In the editors' F2F 22 October and in our regular TC call yesterday, I 
indicated I would compile a draft paragraph to briefly describe the 
attribute that was named isLegallyBinding.

My draft proposal is to rename isLegallyBinding to HasLegalIntent. In 
addition, draft text below describes the mechanisms to be provided by 
the BSI. As indicated on the TC call, the responsibility is between the 
parties and agreements outside of the BSI (and BPSS). In the future, we 
(editors) recognize that contractual constraints in the form of metadata 
may be required and will be defined.

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This attribute is an optional character that represents a statement or 
commitment exchanged between trading partners, set by its sender, which 
indicates that the sender has expressed its intent to make the statement 
legally enforceable. The digital signature cannot in and of itself infer 
intent.

This substantive and enforceable precondition exists on a Business 
Transaction Activity. The mechanisms expected in the BSI that support 
the intent by and of the trading partners themselves are:
a. reliability
b. document security: confidential, tamper detectable and authenticated
c. nonrepudiation
d. authorization
e. predictability

An offer must be resolved whether intentional or not (i.e. no agreement 
exists between the parties).
The contractual framework, agreements and their application to any 
artfiact are outside of this specification.

Reference eCommerce Patterns, v1.0, May 2001, 
http://www.ebxml.org/specs/bpPATT.pdf.
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