Defining Transfer

[bhaugen]

Moved from https://github.com/valueflows/agent/issues/38#issuecomment-150667605

@elf-pavlik wrote

simplest possible definition of vf:Transfer as "transfer of ownership over resource between agents", we need to define concept of ownership first - which seems to make sense as Agent - Resource 'relationship'

[gcassel]

since this is a question of how we describe an agent, can we move this conversation over there? similar to how "each resource will carry all of its identifying information and know its provenance (which is the history of resource flows, processes, and transfers by which it got to wherever it is now)", an agent should indicate the context in which it has been created and relates to other agents.

It's definitely great IMO @ahdinosaur for the subject of each agent's context to be concentrated in the development of Agent vocabulary, and I guess it's okay for it to not even be mentioned in the Transfer "sub-vocabulary". Frankly it makes me nervous because I'm afraid of people trialing or using the Process/Transfer vocabs without defining Agents in what I'd consider to be a fundamentally sound way.

Ultimately, I guess this just depends on how tightly the connections between the Agent, Resource and Process vocabularies are described. But even if the vocabularies prove to be inevitably codependent-- such that no group could effectively use one of them without using all of them-- I'd personally prefer for each vocabulary's protocols to be as independently and comprehensively described as reasonably possible.

So, I guess what I would desire is for the description of Transfer to refer "simply" to Agent, but to parenthetically note that the (IMO) proper interoperable form of an Agent's name includes the context in which that name has been explicitly associated with a unique person or group.

(Certainly can follow up in an Agent topic if that still seems desirable.)

[bhaugen]

(Certainly can follow up in an Agent topic if that still seems desirable.)

Please.

[bhaugen]

I think we need to nail down what we mean by rights. What is a Right, ontologically? How does it fit into the emerging VF vocab?

As I mentioned the REA community has discussed this a lot, but has not agreed on what a Right is. Here is a previous discussion of rights to resources, which I may have floated in VF before.

I'm still good with my proposal in that document, although we have not yet implemented it.

[gcassel]

I suggest that a right is a social construct or "social contract", consisting of mutually understood and accepted/ agreed permission for a specific agent or agent-type to use (and in some cases, potentially consume) a specific resource or resource-type, or to engage in a specific action-types/ activities.

I realize my suggested definition is extraordinarily unromantic according to social contract theory from the Enlightenment onward. However, I think that the term 'right' is only interoperably useful within the context of understood and accepted/ agreed permissions/ authorizations.

(Certainly, for instance, most people in most contexts mutually understand and accept that every person has permission to use their own bodily resources and capabilities in general, and probably in one or more specially defined action-types.)

[fosterlynn]

Next straw dog:

Transfer: Moving rights to and responsibilities for an economic resource from one agent to another. This does not cover change of location or change of possession. The exact rights and responsibilities can be defined by an agreement between the agents, and embodied in the resource to be transferred. If not, the rights are assumed to be rights to consume, use, or transfer the resource. The responsibilities are assumed to be the responsibility to maintain or decommission the resource in ways that cause the least harm to people and the earth. [or way too much? @agentlewis and others?]

:question: :question: :question: Getting closer?

I also realize this definition contradicts where I am trying to go with the actual data structure for transfers of $ between virtual accounts, where I've been saying there are 2 resources. But I'm trying out the rest of the various discussions, and sitting on that one for the moment.

[danalexilewis]

@fosterlynn thats sounding pretty good. I'm going to have to mull over it a bit.

For me

"the least harm to to people and the earth"

Is a value. Though its very broad and I suspect resonates with most people, I think we should use the abstraction of referring to it as values. That way other values could be expressed as well.

eg A fisherman's net is a resource that he/she has rights over and responsibilities. The responsibility to maintain the net is perhaps of more importance as other people rely on the fisherman to supply food. In a way though the fisherman has rights over the net, the responsibility is to the (local)collective to maintain it. Values attached to this resource may be about how one fishes. ie sustainable fishing, looking after the environment. Perhaps the values are the fishermans or the collective. Regardless the point is the use of the net must be in accordance with the values.

I am not sure whether values belong to a resource like a responsibility does. Maybe? and now I am not sure if values is the right term for what I am trying to describe 😵

ie. are organics, fair-trade, ethical-trading, free-range, permaculture, carbon-neutral, locally made/grown, halal, kosher, green, eco, etc... values or descriptions of processes?

[bhaugen]

@agentlewis

ie. are organics, fair-trade, ethical-trading, free-range, permaculture, carbon-neutral, locally made/grown, halal, kosher, green, eco, etc... values or descriptions of processes?

All of the above.

Could be policies, as in, we only eat...foods that come from those kinds of processes.

But they all have processes, too. Permaculture, for example, has policies, recipes, plans, and "what happened". So do the others.

Then sometimes they become quality labels on food products.

[gcassel]

I'm not enthusiastic about implying the attachment any specific responsibilities (such as "least harm to people and the earth") to all resource-rights.

I think it'll be great if humanity can start coordinating efforts in large and small internetworked communities to minimize harm to people and the earth, via community-specific (but perhaps interoperable) guidelines and responsibilities for the use of resources.

[fosterlynn]

I'm not enthusiastic about implying the attachment any specific responsibilities (such as "least harm to people and the earth") to all resource-rights.

@gcassel actually I'm not either as I look at it all. I'd be fine with taking that off of the default sentence and leaving it for specific agreements. People will define plenty there I'm sure.

@agentlewis what do you think?

[danalexilewis]

@fosterlynn yeah ideally the language should be un-opinionated. But should have a vehicle to express opinion through. I personally don't have a problem with a given set op people stipulating that the resources they supply need to be used in accordance with the suppliers values. I am not sure how enforceable it is - and think this is really out of scope of value flows. I see it that value flows enables a more expressive way of talking about and understanding our economy.

[fosterlynn]

But should have a vehicle to express opinion through.

Yes. How about an explicit way to link a resource or resource type with an agreement? The agreement could be as complex as people want it to be, but would just be referenced in VF. It would describe in more detail what rights are represented by the resource.

I know we haven't gotten to the resource part of the vocabulary done yet, but to me this seems roughly where it would go. I tend to think that the internal structures of contracts and other agreements about rights to resources are outside the scope of VF, and that others have worked on those pieces.

[fosterlynn]

OK, how about this? Just took off the responsibilities detail at the end.

Transfer: Moving rights to and responsibilities for an economic resource from one agent to another. This does not cover change of location or change of possession. The exact rights and responsibilities can be defined by an agreement between the agents, and embodied in the resource to be transferred. If not, the rights are assumed to be rights to consume, use, or transfer the resource.

[bhaugen]

I like that definition except for the words "possession", which is not necessary, and "embodied", which seems inaccurate. How about:

Transfer: Moving rights to and responsibilities for an economic resource from one agent to another. This does not cover change of location. The exact rights and responsibilities can be defined by an agreement between the agents, which accompanies the resource to be transferred. If not, the rights are assumed to be rights to consume, use, or transfer the resource.

[edit] "accompanies" could be a link or inclusion in a container of some kind.

[elf-pavlik]

I like that definition except for the words "possession", which is not necessary, and "embodied", which seems inaccurate.

If "possesion" means ~ "usership" as I understand document cited in google doc we used in last days. I think it belongs to the domain of rights for a resource. I agree that we shouldn't mention it since we actually might move/change it (possesion/usership) in transfer.

@fosterlynn would you like to make a Transfer.md in the root of this repo? This way we can track any further changes to Transfer definition and us PR workflow for them.

[bhaugen]

Possession can have a lot of connotations besides usership (custody, for example). Which is why I did not like it in the definition. Then we need to define possession. Whereas location is fairly simple and I think understood by most people in roughly the same way, and gets the point across that transfers have a limited scope.

[fosterlynn]

@fosterlynn would you like to make a Transfer.md in the root of this repo? This way we can track any further changes to Transfer definition and us PR workflow for them.

There was already a transfer.md for collecting notes. I added the definition to the readme.md in the exchange repo so we could start collecting the definitions more visibly.

@elf-pavlik Works for you?

[gcassel]

^this all feels like strong progress to me :)

[elf-pavlik]

Currently in our definition we have

this does not cover change of location.

How about using more general statement

Transfer does NOT affect the resource itself but only the rights to that resource. For example it does not imply any change to resource's location (such change requires a Process).

[bhaugen]

I like where you are going, but:

Transfer does NOT affect the resource

That can be complicated. It depends on the definition and identification of Resource. We're talking about a couple of properties for a resource. These are not necessarily names, just meanings.

• unique identifier of a logical resource
• tracking ID

Those are often different, although the tracking ID, if used, is almost always part of the unique identifier of a resource.

And we talked about allowing people within some boundaries of agreement to specify which combination of other properties would constitute those properties.

Here are some examples I have experienced in manufacturing situations:

• unique identifer = resourceType + lotID + location + owner: so in other words, the owner of the rights was part of the unique identifier of the resource, and if the resource got transferred from one owner to another, the first owner's resources would be decremented, and the second owner's resources would be incremented. Or in still other words, a transfer of rights meant a different resource. This is common with resources are not serialized, where one logical resource has a quantity greater than 1, and the individual instances are substitutable. (Think nuts and bolts, grain, strawberries, bottles of beer in cases, etc.)
• tracking IDs are usually single properties, like lot or batch ID for food and drugs, animal ID for livestock, and serial number for serialized products. Lots can be split up, but serial numbers uniquely identify a particular resource wherever it may be and whoever may have rights to it.

In what Wim Laurier calls the Collaboration Zone, the participants need to agree on the makeup of those identifiers, although they can use different IDs internally to their own operations (which is also common). That's where GTINs come from.

I don't mean to raise commercial practices to any kind of principle for VF; I only mean those as examples I have experienced. But analogs happen in other settings: e.g. my boots vs Lynn's boots.

[fosterlynn]

@elf-pavlik I also like where you are going. But agree with @bhaugen too. What we are struggling with has more to do with "resource" though, and transfer only indirectly. I have the same problem with "resource" in my original definition too.

I think we're going to have to define Resource pretty soon to make headway. What do you all think about an issue to work on all definitions in one place?

[elf-pavlik]

I think we're going to have to define Resource pretty soon to make headway. What do you all think about an issue to work on all definitions in one place?

I think we need to clarify how to identify resources in VF environment, I just created an issue for that - https://github.com/valueflows/resource/issues/13

[elf-pavlik]

How does our current definition of vf:Transfer work with services? I created an issue Product vs. Service , IMO our current definition relates more to the Product than to Service. In Dental Care we have an exchange involving a Service. @bhaugen argues in https://github.com/valueflows/exchange/issues/14#issuecomment-216770713 that we can make Commitment about future Service, or even have Claim for it, but we should not use rights for services offered by human beings. What do we vf:Transfer than in exchanges involving such services?

[bhaugen]

@elf-pavlik great question! I will ask some of the REA gang and report back.

[almereyda]

We have moved the ValueFlows organization from GitHub to https://lab.allmende.io/valueflows.

This issue has been closed here, and all further discussion on this issue can be done at

https://lab.allmende.io/valueflows/exchange/-/issues/12.

If you have not done so, you are very welcome to register at https://lab.allmende.io and join the ValueFlows organization there.