Questions distributors ask
What does a distributor actually do?
A distributor is a cooperative partner, not only a carrier of product. It brings its own services (implementation, advice, facilitation, design, training and first-line support, and setting up Child Villages once MDSL has switched that on) and the relationships it holds in a sector. It keeps everything it charges for those services and shares in subscription revenue. Where MDSL contracts and sets up a product, the distributor still serves the customer around it under its own agreement for its own services. You choose the products and the market, and we agree a named focus together, not a territory.
Do I have to take every product?
No. One product for one kind of customer is a perfectly good start. Choose your market lets you pick.
Is it a franchise, or an exclusive territory?
No. It is a working relationship around a named focus, which is not exclusive and is not a territory. You can keep offering other services.
How would I be paid?
You keep everything you charge for your own services. The customer pays MDSL the published price, and MDSL pays you a share of what it collects, monthly, under one standard written schedule, the same for every distributor. The schedule is drafted and has not yet been sent to anyone; you would receive it after a non-disclosure agreement is signed, and no figure is published.
Who is the customer’s contract with?
The subscription is between the customer and MDSL, on the published Village Terms and price list. The day-to-day service relationship is the distributor’s, under the distributor’s own agreement with the customer for its own services. A distributor never has access to the content of a customer’s records.
Who supports the customer?
We provide central technical support for the platform and the products. The day-to-day service relationship with the customer is the distributor’s, and how the two fit together would be written into each distributor’s agreement.
How is each product delivered?
Village™, MIO° Conduct Record™, Attested Accounts™, Provenance™ and the Governance API add-on are hosted services that we run, with records held in New Zealand or the EU. The Email Decision Record™ is also a hosted service that we run; distributors may introduce it once MDSL has its first paying subscriber. For Provenance the default is that the platform, which we operate, holds the signing key under the owner’s standing authorisation; two split-key arrangements are built and no customer is on either. AVA™ has its own accounts and needs no Village; it can also run from the customer’s own network using an install kit we issue on request, with the sealing staying with us. Only the products a distributor has signed for are available to it.
What can I say to customers?
What the products do, and what they do not. Nothing about legal compliance, safety, or the legal effect of a timestamp. We give you the wording.
Is there demand for the products, and are customers using them?
Village is live by paid subscription; MIO° Conduct Record, AVA, Attested Accounts, Provenance and the Email Decision Record are available on request. "Live" on these pages means a customer uses it in production. Whether customers will use and pay for them has not been tested; paid deployments are how an early commercial phase would test it.
Would a sealed record be accepted in court?
A sealed record shows that particular bytes existed and were signed by a particular key at a stated time. It does not show the content was true, or that a legal duty was met. The timestamp in use today is non-qualified (Certum, Poland); a qualified EU authority (Aruba PEC, Italy) is contracted, built and tested, and available on request. How a timestamp is treated in any proceeding is a legal question MDSL does not advise on.
How big is the market?
We do not publish a market-size estimate, and nothing on this site is a valuation or an offer.
Is MIO-STD-01 an industry standard, and does MDSL conform to it?
No. It is MDSL’s draft standard for how records are sealed and timestamped, and no external standards body has adopted it. Today’s timestamp arrangement carries a disclosed non-conformance with section 5.3.2 of the draft (it relies on one authority). We make no conformance claim for Attested Accounts.
Can I see the products working?
Yes, on request, through a one-time link issued at our discretion. Where MDSL gives evaluation access, it issues a one-time token or link at its discretion, tied to a single address. It is not a free tier, a trial or an anonymous demo, and it does not apply to Village, which is bought by paid subscription through checkout. Conduct Record, AVA, Attested Accounts, Provenance and the Email Decision Record are available on request. The Governance API is available on request as a sandbox. A separate signing host, operated by MDSL, keeps the signing key outside the process that writes records. It is in use for every active Village. A 2-of-3 split-key scheme is built and no tenant is on it; it cannot yet be switched on for a tenant. We will show you what is running and what is coming. The evidence page has the detail.
Is MDSL going open source?
MDSL’s intention is to move what it has built towards open source, in stages. It is an intention only: nothing has been released, nothing is dated, no licence has been fixed and no stage has been named. If it is ever acted on, any distributor agreement would say in plain words what changes, with written notice.
What if it does not work out?
Either side can stop cleanly. An exit process is part of the first arrangement.
How do I start?
Choose your market, or write to john.stroh@mysovereignty.digital.