Human knowledge.
Licensed for machines.
We are the commercial licensor of Even Steven skills. A machine runs one named operator's way of working, under licence, metered by the hour — consented when it was recorded, attributed while it runs, and endable by the person it came from.
From a seat to a signed hour, and back again.
Every claim on this site is a claim about one of these steps. The boundaries drawn below are as load-bearing as the arrows: what does not cross is what makes the rest licensable.
Fig. 1 — Capture to count. Sealed objects carry a mark; dashed rules are boundaries information does not cross.
One name, or a shelf of them.
Tacit Source operates under a licence from Even Steven, and under that licence offers either a single named skill or a set or series of them. Which of the two is offered is our decision. What a set never does is merge them.
One person, one family of machine
Built only from sessions that person consented to, held in the registry under their own name. Chosen by name before the work starts, metered by the machine-hour it runs, attributed to the person it came from, and ended by them.
A skill 02 · A set, or a seriesSeveral names under one paper
A set assembled for the work a job actually needs, or a series that runs from one name across more than one family of machine. Every member is still chosen by name, still counted on its own, still ended on its own.
Sets and seriesA set is a shelf, not a stew. Licensing several skills together never merges them. A count that can be traced back to a person, and a withdrawal that person can act on, are available exactly while each contribution stays a separately addressable thing — so separability is not a feature of this system, it is the condition on which the rest of it can be kept. We do not license a blend, and a set is not one.
What it is charged against The hours a licensed skill actually ran on a machine, per skill, by name. Not a seat. Not a head count. Not a subscription that runs whether a machine runs or not. Not a minimum term to fill. The rate itself is set in the licence, per entry, and no page here quotes one. The licence
Three things, and they only work together.
A named way of working
Each entry is one person's way of running one family of machine, built only from sessions they consented to and held under a licence they can end. Entries are held and addressed by name, and one runs at a time.
The registryWhat crosses, and nothing else
A machine never receives a session. It receives a release: a sealed package a named person signed for, built for the controls that machine already has, refusable on inspection.
The releaseThe clearance is the meter
The act that authorises a machine to run is the act that starts the count. Clearance and invoice come from one signed row, so neither can be adjusted without the other.
The count
A way of working is not a dataset.
It is one person's technique, recorded with their permission, kept separable so that the hour it earns can be traced back to them and stopped by them.
Attribution has to survive the architecture, or it is decoration.
A payment that cannot be traced to a person is a marketing claim. Everything below is a structural decision taken so that it can be.
Chosen by name, or it does not run
A machine runs one named way of working at a time, selected deliberately before the work starts. There is no default and no last-used: a machine that carried yesterday's choice forward would be running on nobody's authority.
A person can stop, and a licensee has no claim
It stops for new work at once; a job already underway finishes. That is not a breach by us and not a failure of supply, and it is the central term of the whole arrangement rather than a clause at the back. A licensee should know it before signing. Withdrawal
The package is not a dataset
What reaches a machine carries no session, no part of a recording, and nothing identifying the person beyond the name the licence runs under. It carries a digest of what went into it, never the contents.
There is no provision, in any instrument we have read, conferring on the holder of a recording any entitlement in respect of it. No right to exclude. No right to be compensated for another party's use of it. No term, and no registry. Because the law hands a holder nothing, a promise to the person in the seat has to be built — in the architecture and in the paper — or it does not exist. That is what this company is. The legal position
Three counterparties. One specification.
The same specification on the same terms to every party that builds against it, including the machine company inside our own group.
Ship on licensed skill
Build a machine that accepts a release and reports a count. What a maker ships carries provenance its buyer's counsel can read.
For makers Kit companiesCarry the path
Put the release path onto machines already in the field, without making them new machines or touching their safety case.
For kit companies Fleet ownersLicense by the job
A named way of working, taken for the work in front of a fleet, on its own machines, paid for by the hours it runs and no others.
For fleet ownersBuilding something that needs skill it can account for?
Tell us which one you are. The interface specification is available under NDA.