DevOps.com

  • Latest
    • Articles
    • Features
    • Most Read
    • News
    • News Releases
  • Topics
    • AI
    • Continuous Delivery
    • Continuous Testing
    • Cloud
    • Culture
    • DataOps
    • DevSecOps
    • Enterprise DevOps
    • Leadership Suite
    • DevOps Practice
    • ROELBOB
    • DevOps Toolbox
    • IT as Code
  • Videos/Podcasts
    • Techstrong.tv Podcast
    • Techstrong.tv Video Podcast
    • Techstrong.tv - Twitch
    • DevOps Unbound
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming
    • On-Demand Webinars
  • Library
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • On-Demand Events
  • Sponsored Content
  • Related Sites
    • Techstrong Group
    • Container Journal
    • Security Boulevard
    • Techstrong Research
    • DevOps Chat
    • DevOps Dozen
    • DevOps TV
    • Techstrong TV
    • Techstrong.tv Podcast
    • Techstrong.tv Video Podcast
    • Techstrong.tv - Twitch
  • Media Kit
  • About
  • Sponsor
  • AI
  • Cloud
  • Continuous Delivery
  • Continuous Testing
  • DataOps
  • DevSecOps
  • DevOps Onramp
  • Platform Engineering
  • Low-Code/No-Code
  • IT as Code
  • More
    • Application Performance Management/Monitoring
    • Culture
    • Enterprise DevOps
    • ROELBOB

Home » Blogs » Doin' DevOps » DevOps: Trust, Obligations and Promises

DevOps: Trust, Obligations and Promises

By: Derek E. Weeks on May 19, 2017 Leave a Comment

Mark Burgess (@markburgess_osl) is a theoretical physicist, but in his keynote at the 2016 All Day DevOps conference, he talked more about economics and human interactives than physics. What does either have to do as the keynote for a conference on DevOps?

Recent Posts By Derek E. Weeks
  • State of the Software Supply Chain: Secure Coding Takes Spotlight
  • Reducing Risk in Applications Using Docker Containers
  • 200 Billion Downloads Can’t Be Wrong
More from Derek E. Weeks
Related Posts
  • DevOps: Trust, Obligations and Promises
  • DevOps Predictions for 2018
  • Digital Transformation and the DevOps Chaos Theory
    Related Categories
  • Blogs
  • Doin' DevOps
  • Events
    Related Topics
  • all day devops
  • dependency
  • devops
  • enterprise
  • infrastructure
  • Nexus
  • sonatype
Show more
Show less

Well, for a little more background, Mark Burgess is also the founder and former CTO of CFEngine, a configuration management and automation framework, and is the author of “Promise Theory.” While at CFEngine, Mark worked to apply a theory of how the autonomous agents in software interact with each other. Promise Theory was born.

TechStrong Con 2023Sponsorships Available

Exploring Promise Theory

Promise Theory sits counter to obligation theories. Obligation theories view human interactions and behavior under the assumption that people (or agents, in the case of software) choose behavior based on their obligation to follow the rules. Agents are obligated to take a certain action. Promise theory contends the desire to follow the rules is voluntary and that agents can only be responsible for their own behavior, not the behavior of other agents.

In his presentation, Mark started out looking at human behavior and trends in our society. For instance, with technological advances, our need for one another is decreasing, even as our interdependence through communication is increasing. For example, our smartphones enable us to do almost anything without the direct interaction of someone else.

Looking at interactions in society, trust is the basis for our exchanges, working communities, and function as a society. He contends, “The promise is the source of intent by which all promises and observers may calibrate their expectations.” Money is an example of this. Money does not have intrinsic value, but we use it because we trust the backer will stand behind its value and it is more convenient than bartering goods. He explains that in the old monetary economy, banks and governments were the provider of trust; in the new service/IT economy, the service provider is the basis of trust.

How Agents Make Promises

How do you model this trust? Enter Promise Theory, which describes how agents make promises with each other and how this leads to trust between them. Mark outlines the “ingredients” of Promise Theory:

  1. Agents and super agents make promises in a scaling hierarchy.
  2. An agent can never make a promise about another agent’s behavior (only its own).
  3. An agent’s promise need not be accepted or used by its intended or unintended recipient!
  4. An agent makes its own valuations: what you have is only worth what another is willing to give you for it.
  5. Dependency invalidates promises.

At the core of understanding this, you have to understand that collaboration is made up of semantics, what words mean and dynamics: all how things work.  And that our ever-increasing service economy is driving us to an explosion of semantics, because words matter so much more than the mechanics. As an example, Mark sketched the hierarchy of promise dependencies in the old and new economies. Looking at the old economy, where we have more dynamic money, the hierarchy is:

Retail→ Money→ Banks→ Central Banks→ Government.

In the new economy, where we have more semantic services, the hierarchy is:

Client→ Network Availability→ Provider→ Internet Authorities→ Company/Service Organization.

The Need for Cooperation

None of these systems could work without cooperation at the bottom of it all. So, production is a cognitive process between the producer and the consumer, but also between the agents inside those organizations that have to interact. Often we create pipelines to describe these interactions, but the interdependencies within the systems are often much more complex than the pipeline can model.

 

This is all just the tip of the iceberg. Mark has three books that dive into it in detail: “Thinking in Promises,” “In Search of Certainty,” and, “Promise Theory.”

In the end, Mark made the point that technology does an excellent job of both binding us together and pulling us apart. We need to be careful that we don’t take ourselves out of the systems we create, or we could scale ourselves out of existence.

DevOps.com Supports the All Day DevOps Conference

If this piqued your interest, you can watch Mark’s full All Day DevOps conference session (just 40 minutes).  When you do, you can view the other 56 presentations from the 2016 conference online and free of charge.  Finally, be sure to register you and the rest of your team for the 2017 All Day DevOps conference here.  This year’s event will offer 96 practitioner-led sessions (no vendor pitches allowed).  It’s free and online on Oct. 24.  DevOps.com is a media sponsor for All Day DevOps 2017.

— Derek E. Weeks

Filed Under: Blogs, Doin' DevOps, Events Tagged With: all day devops, dependency, devops, enterprise, infrastructure, Nexus, sonatype

« Automation: A Few Decades of Pain? Or, What Does Jack Ma Know That I Don’t?
Bridging Company Values »

Techstrong TV – Live

Click full-screen to enable volume control
Watch latest episodes and shows

Upcoming Webinars

Achieving Complete Visibility in IT Operations, Analytics, and Security
Wednesday, February 1, 2023 - 11:00 am EST
Achieving DevSecOps: Reducing AppSec Noise at Scale
Wednesday, February 1, 2023 - 1:00 pm EST
Five Best Practices for Safeguarding Salesforce Data
Thursday, February 2, 2023 - 1:00 pm EST

Sponsored Content

The Google Cloud DevOps Awards: Apply Now!

January 10, 2023 | Brenna Washington

Codenotary Extends Dynamic SBOM Reach to Serverless Computing Platforms

December 9, 2022 | Mike Vizard

Why a Low-Code Platform Should Have Pro-Code Capabilities

March 24, 2021 | Andrew Manby

AWS Well-Architected Framework Elevates Agility

December 17, 2020 | JT Giri

Practical Approaches to Long-Term Cloud-Native Security

December 5, 2019 | Chris Tozzi

Latest from DevOps.com

Cisco AppDynamics Survey Surfaces DevSecOps Challenges
January 31, 2023 | Mike Vizard
Jellyfish Adds Tool to Visualize Software Development Workflows
January 31, 2023 | Mike Vizard
3 Performance Challenges as Chatbot Adoption Grows
January 31, 2023 | Christoph Börner
Looking Ahead, 2023 Edition
January 31, 2023 | Don Macvittie
How To Build Anti-Fragile Software Ecosystems
January 31, 2023 | Bill Doerrfeld

TSTV Podcast

On-Demand Webinars

DevOps.com Webinar ReplaysDevOps.com Webinar Replays

GET THE TOP STORIES OF THE WEEK

Most Read on DevOps.com

Microsoft Outage Outrage: Was it BGP or DNS?
January 25, 2023 | Richi Jennings
The Database of the Future: Seven Key Principles
January 25, 2023 | Nick Van Wiggerern
Harness Acquires Propelo to Surface Software Engineering Bot...
January 25, 2023 | Mike Vizard
Don’t Hire for Product Expertise
January 25, 2023 | Don Macvittie
Atlassian Extends Automation Framework’s Reach
January 26, 2023 | Mike Vizard
  • Home
  • About DevOps.com
  • Meet our Authors
  • Write for DevOps.com
  • Media Kit
  • Sponsor Info
  • Copyright
  • TOS
  • Privacy Policy

Powered by Techstrong Group, Inc.

© 2023 ·Techstrong Group, Inc.All rights reserved.