Chapter 1. Terms

Chapter 1. Terms
Prev		Next

This chapter will acquaint you with the basic terms.

Participant
Participant (or user) - is a physical person who has an account in the system. Users can exchange goods, services and participate in collective projects. Each participant has an open set of reputational characteristics, which are based on historical data about participant's transactions in the system.
Need
Need - is a description of the goods or services that are needed by any participant, or some number of conventional units.
Offer
Offer - a description of the goods or services that may be made by any participant, or number of conventional units which belongs to the participant.
Contract
Contract is a key concept of Zero Exchange. Contract binds the needs of participants with the appropriate offers and joins participants together, allowing use the phenomena of division of labor to achieve goals. The contract's lifecycle consists of the following stages:
- Uncompleted. Contract have unsatisfied needs.
- Ready. All demands in the contract have corresponding offers.
- Accepted. Each participant must accept the contract if convinced that he / she clearly understands his / her obligations under this contract, and is ready to execute them.
- Executed. Contract is accepted by all participants. Once the last participant accepts the contract, all participants should proceed to implement its obligations in accordance with the contract.
- Completed. All participants fulfilled their obligations.

Prev		Next
Zero Exchange	Home	Chapter 2. Simpel Usage Example