We need a “witness” web app which provides proof that person A has agreed to legal document X.

There are loads of applications for this:

• Proof that a Mozilla contributor has agreed to our Committer’s Agreement
• Proof that someone has agreed to the IPR policy necessary for contributing to a standards body mailing list
• Proof that someone has agreed to a trademark licence

These things can be done without an app, but it’s dull and tedious for the person doing the paperwork. Much better to get a computer to do it.

In its simplest form, the app would just require a Persona login, show you the document, have you click “I Agree” and then store that information, with metadata such as time, IP address, document hash etc., perhaps sending a data bundle off to a timestamping service to prove it couldn’t be falsified later. There would also be a confirmation email sent out to the email account which would allow people to repudiate the agreement within a certain length of time. in case something had gone wrong.

There are loads of potential additional features – extra logging, a mechanism to email everyone to come back if the document is updated, notification of the document uploader when someone signs it, etc. But the basic idea is very simple, and could be really useful.

I asked for help on this at the start of last year, and got one response, but then the person turned out not to have time. Are there any web app hackers out there who would like to build a generally-useful piece of open source software?