[cap-talk] Is "Authority" Subjective?

[Pierre THIERRY]

Scribit Toby Murray dies 22/06/2007 hora 15:48:
> Suppose we have 3 objects/subjects/actors/whatever, Alice, Bob and Carol
> and the system is 
> 
> P = aliceInvokesCarol -> carolRespondsToAlice -> bobInvokesCarol -> STOP
> []
>     bobInvokesCarol -> STOP
> 
> i.e. initially either Alice or Bob can invoke Carol. Once invoked by
> Alice, Bob can't invoke Carol until she responds to Alice. 
> 
> Would you say that Alice can cause Bob to invoke Carol?

That obviously depends on Carol's code. If Carol is coded to answer to
Alice's request, then Alice has the authority. Here we may lack a term
for "partial" authority: if Carol is coded to answer to the request
between 8 PM and 7 PM, Alice still has authority, just not as much as if
Carol answer systematically.

If Carol is a Caretaker, the usage here on the list was to say that
Alice has authority until the Caretaker is disabled. Hence calling the
disabling of the Caretaker "revoking Alice's authority".

Note that it makes authority undecidable in the general case. Think of a
proxy that forwards messages randomly... (random authority may be an
interesting concept)

Undecidably,
Pierre
-- 
nowhere.man at levallois.eu.org
OpenPGP 0xD9D50D8A
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