Re: making the webcredits.org spec more strict about 'source' and 'destination' fields.

On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 3:08 PM, Melvin Carvalho
<melvincarvalho@gmail.com> wrote:
> Now the question is, should we reuse the Transfer class (seems like a good
> idea to reuse if it's possible) or does it make more logical sense to have a
> separate IOU class?

difference between a debt and an IOU: an IOU is a document, issued by
the ower, that describes a debt.

difference between a debt, a money transfer and a goods transfer:

- a debt is a state, whereas a transfer is an event.
- the debt may start with either a money transfer or a goods transfer
from owee to ower
- the debt may end with either a money transfer or a goods transfer
from ower to owee
- the start of a debt may be communicated from ower to owee by sending an IOU

now what happens when you say the type of an IOU is 'transfer'?
presumably that then means that the debt represented by the IOU starts
with a money transfer, or that the sending of the IOU is to be
interpreted as a money transfer. so then you treat the IOU as a
self-issued bank note.

that's different from what i had in mind with opentabs. i consider
opentabs a bookkeeping tool, not a money transfer tool.

for instance, say i want to represent the data point that i
transferred money to you using the Plain Old Banking System. if i
describe this in a web credit, and then send it to you for your
information, i would effectively be paying you twice - once via POBS
and once by the act of sending the web credit to you as an IOU.

in other words, i would prefer type=debt instead of type=transfer to
avoid that confusion. and to further avoid confusion with the name i
would then maybe use type=credit, and now i have to think really hard
already about whether the source would be the ower or the owee then.
if i have money in the bank, then i am a source of credit, and the
bank is the ower. so with type=credit ('web credit'), source would be
owee. either way, it's confusing and easy to get it the wrong way
around!

Received on Monday, 7 May 2012 15:19:49 UTC