Re: Re: Self-descriptive messages

On Sun, Aug 26, 2012 at 3:10 AM, Bob <[email protected]> wrote:
> However, I thought of another reason that convinced me even more of the correctness of Mark's argument from a business standpoint, and that is non-repudiation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-repudiation
>
> That is, if both parties to an electronic agreement send, receive and sign each of the full messages exchanged in the dialog, maybe even exchanging the whole built-up sequence each time, they have a record of the agreement that would be difficult for either party to repudiate.

Right. That was always in the back of my mind too, though as one
possible consequence of capturing the full meaning in a single digital
package.

> This reason may not have been Roy's reason for including self-descriptive messages as a REST constraint, but it would be important in business contract situations.

I can't remember when or where, but I recall Roy talking about how
HTML documents needed their stylesheets and images in order to fully
reflect the intent of the publisher in a legal context. Not sure if
that was based on conjecture or actual case law though.

Mark.