Glossary
Every term on this site, defined once.
This site uses a small number of words in a narrow sense and never in a looser one. Each is defined here, alphabetically, with a link to the page that treats it in full.
The terms
Defined in the sense the specification uses, and no other.
Where two terms are easily mistaken for each other — a set for a blend, an out-of-service date for a true date — the definition says so. Each definition is the sense the page it links to uses.
- AdmissionAdmission →
- The step between a recording and a registry entry. Every session is accepted or refused, and a refusal names its reason. Nothing is admitted silently, and a consent given later does not reach back over a session already made.
- AuditAudit →
- Checking a count at source rather than reconciling two accounts of it. A licensee checks the hours it is invoiced for against the rows signed on its own machines; the person whose skill ran checks the hours run under their name.
- ClearanceThe count →
- The act by which a person on the crew authorizes a machine to run one named way of working. It is not a step taken before the meter starts. It is the step that starts it.
- Consent, the fourConsent →
- Four separate permissions, each signed on its own and each ended on its own: to be recorded, to be held alongside others, to run under their own name, and to be used to train a model. They are given to Even Steven, not to us, and nothing here depends on the fourth.
- CorpusWho we are →
- The body of recorded ways of working held by Even Steven, who licenses it to Tacit Source. A corpus is not a training set: nothing held in it is fitted together with anything else.
- Count lineThe count →
- One signed row, made at the machine, naming what ran, whose way of working it was, who cleared it, and where the hours start and stop. The invoice and the payment both come off that row. It is not a timesheet assembled afterwards.
- DigestIntegrity →
- A fingerprint of the contents of an object: a short value that follows from everything inside it and no longer matches if anything inside it changes. A digest crosses to a machine; the contents never do.
- Even StevenWho we are →
- The person's counterparty, and the holder of both their consent and the corpus. A person in a seat signs with Even Steven, which licenses the corpus to Tacit Source. A question about a person's own record goes there, not here.
- Family of machineA skill →
- The class of machine an entry is built from and runs on. A skill is one person and one family of machine, because the reach, the balance and the timing belong to the iron as much as to the hands.
- HandThe count →
- The person a named way of working came from: the operator the hours are attributed to and paid to. A hand is a party to the chain and never a subject of it — a record is never supplied to assess the person.
- InterfaceMachine makers →
- The one specification a machine meets in order to accept a release and return a count. It is offered on the same terms to every party that builds against it, and it is available under NDA.
- LicenseeThe licence →
- The party holding a licence from us over one or more named entries: a machine maker, a kit company or a fleet owner. A licensee is never the person in the seat, who holds no agreement with us at all.
- Out-of-service dateWithdrawal →
- The day a withdrawn entry stops being choosable. It is not the true date and is never quoted in place of one: a person is told both dates, never one, and the shorter never stands in for the longer.
- ProvenanceProvenance →
- The chain standing behind an hour: a named skill, a named person, a consent that was live when the record was made, and an admission that accepted it. It is walkable in either direction by a party that is neither us nor the person.
- RecordThe record →
- A session considered as personal information, which is what it is in every regime that matters. A record is made from the machine and the work, and it is never supplied — not to a machine, and not to assess the person.
- RegistryThe registry →
- Where a named way of working is held. Entries are held and addressed by name, one runs at a time, and nothing in the registry is fitted together with anything else. The registry never publishes weights.
- Registry entryThe registry →
- The unit the whole chain addresses: one named person and one family of machine, built only from sessions that person consented to. The release, the count, the attribution and the withdrawal each address an entry by name.
- ReleaseThe release →
- What crosses to a machine: a sealed package a named person signed for, built for the controls that machine already has, and refusable on inspection. A machine never receives a session. A release is fixed once made, and a change is a new release.
- Release packageThe release →
- The object a release consists of. It carries no recording, no part of one, and nothing identifying the person beyond the name the licence runs under. It carries a digest of what went into it, never the contents.
- SealIntegrity →
- What is done to an object as it is made, so a later copy can be checked against it without the original being handed over. Three objects carry one: the session, the release and the count line. A seal does not make a badly made record a good one.
- SeatWhat it is →
- A person working their own machine, their own way, on their own job. Nothing of ours is connected to that machine's controls while a session is recorded, and the machine is neither driven by us nor modified by us.
- SeparabilityThe registry →
- The property that each person's contribution stays a separately addressable thing. A per-person count and a per-person withdrawal can be honoured exactly where it holds, so separability is not a feature. It is the condition on which every other undertaking here can be kept.
- SeriesSets and series →
- Several entries licensed under one paper because something runs through them — most often one person across more than one family of machine. A series is a kind of set, and like any set it merges nothing.
- SessionThe record →
- One recording of one person working, sealed when it is made. It carries, inside itself, who made it and what they permitted, rather than in a register beside it. A session is never released to a machine.
- SetSets and series →
- Several named skills licensed together under one paper. A set is a shelf, not a stew: a set of six is six things that arrived in one envelope, not a seventh thing made out of the six. A set is not a blend.
- SkillA skill →
- One named person's way of running one family of machine. It is chosen by name before the work starts, runs under that name, is metered by the hour the machine works, and is endable by the person it came from. A skill is not a dataset.
- Steady EddieWho we are →
- The machine company inside the same group as Tacit Source. It builds machines and takes the interface on the same terms every other party takes it on, with no earlier sight of it. It is named here because the equal-terms claim is worth nothing if the related party is not named.
- Tacit SourceWho we are →
- The commercial licensor of Even Steven skills: an independent company holding a licence from Even Steven, and holding the registry, the release path and the count. Under it we may offer either individual skills or sets and series, at our discretion.
- True dateWithdrawal →
- The day the last copy of a withdrawn entry is gone, backups included. It is the longer of the two dates a person is told, and an out-of-service date never stands in for it.
- Way of workingThe registry →
- One person's technique, recorded with their permission and held under their name. A way of working is not a dataset. It proposes and it never authorizes: a person authorizes, and safety has veto.
- WithdrawalWithdrawal →
- A person ending one of their permissions — free, on their own say, needing nobody's agreement, effective on receipt. It stops for new work at once; a job already underway finishes. It is never a breach by us and gives a licensee no claim of any kind.
Reading this for a counterparty?
Every term here points at the page that treats it in full, and every page points at the licence.