Re: [legalxml-econtracts] Thinking about information models

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

    Hello all.  Dave's comment points up a
fundamental issue in our space.  
    As Rolly said, theoretically one can dismiss the
physical model as a trivial problem and rely on transforms.  In fact
you can view any of the layers Dave describes (below) as a trivial
production from another one.  In theory.
    But in real life transforms are nontrivial.  In
software, roundtrip transforms today -- XMI and the like, and managed
code generators generally -- are not always as reliable as we might
hope.   
    As practicing lawyers, we see analogous problems
daily:   
        -- multi-language written
contracts with which-one-is-definitive issues;  
        -- B2B software that executes
on business object models that prove  woefully nonisomorphic to the
modeled reality;   
        -- content taxonomies that by
reason of logical flaws overlook or mischaracterize important data; 
and so on.
    In advising clients I insist on knowing which
representation of a contract is the definitive instantiation.  
Always.  None of this "heh, the OO representation is just as
good", unless the object model is unambiguous and is
the designated tiebreaker artifact -- because I get paid to ship
certainty (or at least an expert assessment of its availability). 
    So I am chary about simultaneous parallel
representations without a clear provision for resolving inter-schema
conflicts.  I am enthusiastic about Dave's view, but for that reason
think it needs to be approached with caution.

Best regards    Jamie

At 12:23 AM 1/28/2003 -0800, Dave Marvit
wrote:
> It seems to me that the lens used
> to look at a contract determines which information models are most
> significant. * * * 
> 1. A physical model document * * * 
> 2. A structural model document * * *..
> 3. An obligation model document * * * in terms of commitments * * * 
> 4. A parameterized model * * * 
> * * *

~ James Bryce Clark
~ 1 310 293 6739   jbc@lawyer.com
~ Chair, US ABA Business Law E-Commerce Subcommittee 
~ This message is not legal advice or a binding signature.  Feel free to ask me why.