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.
the license should be left in and intact. taking the code means you accept the license terms so if you allocate the required % to PTS holders then all is well, you are not obligated to tell us the key changes that made your product unique. But if you are well versed with this community you'll see that the majority of us do not touch products whose source we cannot review.
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.
Unless there is a world government, jurisdiction is not something we can control. We simply put terms that we see applicable in most jurisdictions. It's counter productive to start looking at individual jurisdictions. even governments know there is a limit to enforcement, kinda why tax havens exist and little can be done. One thing this license should not become is a hodge-podge of technical law, it becomes too complicated for the average person to understand.
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.
I can just say that it is one thing, we are trying to make it difficulty for IP entities to operate this code for profit.
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?
We know because it will be clear as day if they have honoured the license at the very first block. Public release means you have honoured it anyway.
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."
The very structure you were against in the beginning is the one you are stating now. I had put a Commons and non-commons section, make it infinitely easy for a person to pick one.
lol, you cant modify the GPL.
As i said initially, this is a unique situation and requires a unique solution. attempted hack jobs just will not cut it.