Promise You A Rose Garden - An essay about system management
markburgess.org/rosegarden.pdf
From the page
Saved with the link. Notes from 2007 to 2016 are mostly the page's own words, so this is probably an excerpt.
A promise is like an arrow, something fired from a human, a business, a computer or other party, to another. Each one carries a claim about its originator, to the receiver (who, by the way, has no direct influence on the content of the promise). Each promise is aimed at a single recipient, but the promiser can fire similar arrows at any number of targets to repeat the promise. Promises are non-transferable and constrain only the promiser, never the promisee. Duplicating a promise to the same recipient has no effect, but repeating a promise with a change added would be a promise broken.