Quote from: Darker45 on March 06, 2022, 11:22:56 AM

It would be much more efficient to hire an escrow-cum-arbiter rather than hire a separate arbiter and a separate escrow.

The reason to separate enforcement and judgment has to do with the fact that whoever can be trusted with handling funds and with its honesty and general judgement may not have, themselves, the expertise for a specific case. You can see it as hiring experts or lawyers to make a case to a judge. The judge doesn't know about the topic, but will consider experts and witnesses to make a ruling.

The idea is to have a system that can also handle case that are outside the scope of what could have originally been anticipated.

Quote from: Royse777 on Today at 07:44:31 AM

..what is in it for me...

In an ideal world, everyone is honest and collaboratively complete everything, and you get nothing while having nothing to do. However, if a conflict arise, you get paid whatever you charge for whatever it is that you are offering to do. I know that is still vague, and that is for the sake of flexibility.

The first thing I would use it for is to fund open-source software, namely contributing to adding features to existing wallets.

Essentially, I propose a feature, people who want to see that feature implemented commit funds to some multi-sig, I hire developers to do the work, the work gets completed, everyone is happy, the funds are released cooperatively, and you didn't do anything. However, if the work doesn't get done, people are not happy and ask for their money back, you get hired, you find out that the developer can't show a working product, then you return the funds to the original contributors.

By the way, a Charlie can also offer to pre-approve contracts for a fee.

How much would you charge for reading and pre-approving a contract? (can be a range, depending)

How much would you charge for spending up to an hour looking at a case and make a ruling? (Again, it can be more complicated than a number)

A ruling would be something like:

The work has been fully completed and the funds should be released in full; or
The work has been partially and the [such] percentage of the funds should be released; or
The work has not been done and the funds should be returned; or
Any other statement as for why it is not possible to make one of the rulings above.

Splitting hair further...
Experts, may be hired (by either or both parties) to look into a case, write a report and make a recommendation.
All signed recommendations can be send to a judge for a final decision to be made.
And finally, an enforcer just do whatever the judge said.

Indeed, one entity may play more than one role.

So the escrow provider may just "apply the judgement of the judge (or judges) specified in the contract"
Experts may be approved either by a contract and/or by a judge.