These are my non-professional opinions, take them or leave them. This is just based on lots of open source software licensing experience from a distribution point of view. If it helps, great - if not - that's great too.
"legitimate closed-source development" seems to be at odds with "doesn't claim IP rights." You can't do closed-source development and not claim IP rights.
This is called trade secret.
I do not believe in copyright personally and thus want to be consistent in my licensing approach.
so you're ok with people taking the protoshares code and removing the social consensus as long as they keep it trade secret? That seems like the worst of both worlds. If I was a company, i'd spin-off an LLC that forks code, makes changes and keeps the changes trade secret without giving anything back to the community, and I'd be protected by your license.
If the entity does not claim copyright what is the point of having a license at all? And if they do claim copyright that is why they should read License 1.
Because even if they don't follow copyright, the courts of their jurisdiction do. The parenthesis was for our own clarification, that would not actually show up in the license because courts don't care if you don't follow copyright. Therefore, we need something that will do what I3 wants but using language courts would uphold. The strong copyleft was just there to ensure that third parties would be forced to disclose code/cease usage if they turned hostile.
So I don't see any reason why we should have more than 1 License for all. If you don't believe in copyright then don't read the license because it's legalese gibberish but if you do believe in that then read and follow the law.
Because you're trying to do two separate things, the licenses and terms you are granting are different. I don't see a reason why there should be only one document if there are clearly two different modes of operation, and you are only operating in one of those two modes at a given time. This allows you to properly write documents that clearly lay out the terms of each of the modes without worrying about simultaneously considering the other mode. It could be one document, but there should be a very clear break between the two "OR" sections. The two-license approach is best used if you let users choose between two well known licenses (what I was trying to find a way to do). But if you're writing your own, then it doesn't matter. Just don't try to do both at the same time - write two clearly distinct sections so there isn't any possible bleedover of rights from one to the other.
Assuming we take a Dual License Approach, how do we know which license each user is operating under?
You don't need to know which one they are operating under the same way you don't need to know which option they choose if it is a single document. I was wrong in bringing up that have a single document makes it harder to know which mode you are in. But if you have a single document, how do you know which terms the user accepted?
that is one of the issues i wanted to bring up. Unless it is absolutely necesarry i believe the current approach is best. A single license that stipulates the rights accorded to the two groups is a cleaner and enforceable solution. I've heard of a product having two licenses but it sounds messy,especially considering the stipulations. Perhaps Single Vendor Commercial Open Source option can offer some ideas. i'll ruminate the idea
I agree. There is no reason why more than one license should exist. Having more than one makes it unnecessary and complicated. No one is going to read a license if they don't believe in copyright. Do "pirates" read the FBI warning?
Pirates read the FBI warning, don't believe it is valid, and end up getting fined or jail time. You are already making more than one license, you already have two license modes that you are trying to smash together as one. It's much less complicated to have to clear distinct modes rather than trying to decipher a single document that covers two cases simultaneously.
The two license solution works best if they are well known licenses, or close derivatives of well known licences (e.g., adding a clause to BSD-3 or modifying GPL). If you do that, it is cleaner to have two separate licenses. But you're right, if you custom write your own license it doesn't matter what you do as long as it is clear that there are two modes of operation and the user has to choose between those two licenses.
In the end, my opinion is non-professional. I think the language of the license should not be written by non-professionals. We can come up with a guidance document, but the actual language should be written by a lawyer. That's why when people ask how they should write their own license, the answer universally is "don't, use an existing one or find a lawyer."