This paper attempts to define the software compliance and transparency problem. This constitutes a high-level holistic view. Several visualizations of the problem are presented. The context is the changeover from a text culture to a machine culture in law. We note that equal access to e-procedures does not guarantee justice. The transparency of the law leads to the transparency of software and hence challenges legal informatics. We formulate two requirements for legal machines: 1) the software architecture must be accessible; and 2) the software must provide legal protection. A need therefore arises for the legal requirements to flow down to lower-level specifications. Further we explain the notion of subsumption – a legal qualification of facts in the setting of a norm. Finally we discuss the definition of the compliance problem.