Contributions and economic continuity¶
This guide follows the path from formulating a contribution to finding an application for it and deciding how to recognize a consequence received. The collaboration and infrastructure examples show that path in fictional situations. The specification defines the records and their requirements. An Appoint declares what its author formulated; a Trace declares a relationship with other work; a Nod declares a consequence its author received. A private, unsigned draft can preserve a formulation before the person chooses to prepare any of those records.
Initial description. This is a brief, initial description of possible uses. Experience with the protocol, real cases that may be documented and improvements to tools and infrastructure may clarify, extend or correct the paths presented. The stories are fictional. Describing a mechanism does not mean that an application is ready to carry it out or that its economic benefits have been demonstrated.
Preserve before knowing the application¶
A person may identify a problem, formulate a hypothesis or develop a partial solution without knowing who will need it. Another participant may find that contribution months later, when a demand appears, and combine it with work produced independently.
This possibility matters to the long tail: many contributions have infrequent uses, limited reach or value dependent on a context not yet known. Negotiating in advance who will pay, for which result and under which conditions may cost more than the opportunity allows. Preserving a formulation need not wait until all those conditions are settled. Usage rights and confidentiality still apply to the material preserved.
There are two distinct economic problems. For the person seeking a solution, finding and examining the contribution needs to be worth the effort. For its provider, the return received needs to be sufficient to continue, given their costs, resources and objectives. A contribution can be useful without sustaining its author. AI, well-described files and accessible references may help search and reading; their costs and errors also enter that assessment.
Distinguish moments and commitments¶
Before or after what? A contribution can be formulated before a client exists. A data-access agreement can be made after formulation and before use. Recognition can be chosen after a consequence. The accessible history of that relationship can then inform another future relationship.
| Instrument | What it can organize | How it can compose with records |
|---|---|---|
| Risk or success-based contract | Remuneration conditions and risk allocation | Declarations and evidence may help examine its performance |
| Performance review | Activities, responsibilities and contributions considered by an organization | Can consult records without restricting every formulation to the review's criteria |
| Royalties | Usage rights and remuneration conditions | Can coexist with declarations about dependencies and consequences |
| Legible records | Formulations, declared dependencies and recognized consequences | Can exist without advance negotiation of every economic application |
Contracts can provide for future results, information and audit. Reviews can consider unexpected contributions. Using Legible does not depend on claiming that those instruments cannot do so. The question is whether the composition allows consideration of contributions whose use did not yet justify a specific negotiation. Records and ordinary documents can also complement each other.
Combine access to results without fixing all remuneration¶
Before offering resources, a person may want to know how they will examine what happened with their work. The parties can agree to make future data available without setting a recognition percentage at that moment.
The agreement can identify the results followed, periods and calculation bases, who produces the data, who can access them and which documents allow the calculation to be checked. It can define confidentiality, authorized disclosure, handling disagreements, verification costs and responsibilities.
That does not make a contract compulsory for every contribution. One relationship may justify detailed verification; another may work with existing documents or a limited account. Access also does not determine causality alone: knowing a project's revenue does not reveal which share resulted from each contribution, other resources or market conditions.
The protocol neither retrieves the data nor executes that agreement. An external application or process needs to handle access, documents and checks. A referenced contract must not be presented as examined when its content is unavailable to the reader.
Choose a percentage after the consequence¶
After receiving and examining a consequence, its beneficiary can propose a recognition arrangement expressed as a percentage participation. That percentage need not have been fixed before the work. For example:
I recognize that this contribution enabled us to structure the service we delivered. I propose recognition corresponding to 3% of the calculated result of that activity, under the referenced external terms.
In this illustrated case, a non-monetary Nod presents the proposed contractual
arrangement. The statement describes the consequence, percentage and context.
The required agreement-hash-reference field identifies the exact bytes of the
terms, which can detail the calculation base, amounts, data access and other
conditions. nods must identify the recognized contribution by RecordID, the identifier
of a Legible record.
The authorized author of the recognized record can issue a .response with
kind: agreement-decision and signal: accepted or declined, under §3.4.
It records their declaration about the exact proposal. Formation and effects
of the agreement also depend on the applicable powers, acts, terms and rules.
Record verification does not establish its execution.
| Information | What the reader needs to distinguish |
|---|---|
| Proposed percentage | The offer presented by the recognizer |
| Accepted percentage | The expression of acceptance of that offer |
| Established commitment | The actual acts and terms of the relationship |
| Amount transferred | A payment event, with its own documents |
| Recognized consequence | What the beneficiary declares receiving |
That proposal does not declare an already completed monetary transfer. A
monetary Nod has other required content: economic.amount states the amount
declared already transferred, and currency the currency. A later transfer
can be declared in a new relevant record without silently changing the earlier
proposal. The chosen form needs to correspond to what is declared; writing a
percentage alone does not determine the Nod's form.
A proposal entirely preceding the consequence can remain in an Appoint or an external document. It need not be presented as recognition of something that has not happened. The NRC, the recognition convention adopted by an Appoint, also distinguishes recognizing from paying: a reputational Nod can satisfy the convention's expectation without a monetary transfer (§7).
Make part of the information public¶
The parties can examine restricted amounts and documents while authorizing disclosure only of the percentage, its base and the consequence description. The example's non-monetary Nod can be public with restricted external terms. Its hash allows checking a presented document's correspondence, without granting access to it or proving its information true.
A complete monetary Nod requires an amount and currency. If it remains private,
an authorized public summary can describe part of the relationship, but must
be identified as a summary. Removing fields from the signed content (canonical_content) does not
preserve the same intact record. The proposal, summary and transfer must not
be counted as independent payments of the same event.
A percentage also needs context: an equity share, a proportion of a calculated result and a proportion already transferred are different information. Different dates, bases and conditions may prevent direct comparisons. Other sources may allow deduction of amounts intended to remain confidential.
Use history in new decisions¶
A person may consult an organization's earlier recognitions before offering work. A provider may examine uses of its infrastructure before extending support. A client may read earlier contributions and consequences when assessing who can meet a demand. Information following one relationship becomes information preceding the next.
That expectation can influence what people formulate and preserve. Someone may record an observation they would otherwise abandon because they believe it has a reasonable chance of being found and considered. This is a possible path to expanding the universe of contributions; more files alone do not demonstrate it.
History is partial where records and evidence are private, unavailable or unknown. Finding no public Nod does not establish missing recognition. Portability lets declarations reach other readers under their access conditions, but guarantees neither an audience, complete context nor correct interpretation.
Compare proposals with AI assistance¶
Begin with the decision-maker's need: what they seek, which restrictions matter and which information is authorized for reading and processing. Those criteria can be in the conversation, a document or an Appoint; a client record is not needed to begin comparing.
Ask the assistant to identify the proposals examined, their versions and sources consulted. For each alternative, it should explain:
- How it relates to the current criteria.
- Which contributions it uses and who declared each dependency.
- Which evidence was read and which remains merely referenced.
- Which access, execution or usage conditions still need clarification.
- Which disagreements, limitations and questions could change the recommendation.
An explained recommendation can help a choice. Counts of antecedents, keys or Nods do not establish quality, source independence or satisfaction of criteria. A proposed composition also does not prove prior use among its components. The analysis should separate declarations, checks and inferences, preserve disagreement and report its scope. A ranking attributed to a reader or service does not become the protocol's official score.
The person responsible for a resource chooses according to their commitments and authority. They may talk to participants and decide in a meeting. An ordinary note or document can preserve what they consider relevant; not every conversation needs a formal record. The reference software does not by itself offer a ready, validated semantic comparison for every client.
Recognize and sustain infrastructures¶
A library, dataset, scientific tool, search service or community workbench can
contribute to independent work. The infrastructure can predate Legible and not
use the protocol. Traces and reputational or monetary Nods can reference external
work under the formats; the RecordID requirement remains for non-monetary Nods.
An operator can offer resources, observe consequences and recognitions received and decide on future support within its commitments. The user also chooses whether to continue using or supporting that resource. Contracts, subscriptions, licenses, donations and subsidies can compose with that circuit. No percentage is reserved for the protocol or an intermediary (§8.3).
Aggregate benefit and the operator's return need to be followed separately. Hundreds of small uses may matter and still generate few maintenance resources. Documenting, examining and transferring small amounts also costs resources. An infrastructure may depend on other funding sources or be sustainable without public Nods. Recognition can add information to continuity decisions without guaranteeing their funding.
What to observe in an experiment¶
| Hypothesis | What to observe |
|---|---|
| Long-tail participation | Were previously overlooked contributions found and used? What did preserving and examining them cost? |
| Less asymmetry through access to results | Were data delivered and checked? Did relevant uncertainties decrease? What effort was required? |
| History guiding new relationships | Did information change actual decisions to collaborate, contract or support? Were expectations met? |
| Incentives to formulate | Did useful contributions emerge, or only more files and recording work? |
| Infrastructure continuity | Did resources received and predictability help maintain activity? How did they relate to costs and other sources? |
Compare where possible with good documentation, available tools and the same AI assistance. Consider authors', readers' and operators' time, verification costs, returns received and participation lost. Concentrated search, misleading declarations, appropriation without compensation and power differences can limit results. Record inconclusive or adverse experiences too.
Conditions of use and responsibilities¶
This guide is informative and adds no fields, record types or validity requirements. Signatures attribute declarations to keys; they do not alone establish truth, causality, civil identity or representation authority.
Contracting, usage rights, confidentiality, data protection and tax obligations depend on the actual relationship and applicable rules. An agreement among participants does not automatically grant rights over third-party data or materials. A record replaces no required instrument and executes no payment. Read terms before accepting them; this guide is not a contract template.