Self-interested fork problem

The self-interested fork problem is a variant of the bad copy problem where what is "bad" is simply the dilution of improvements and the loss of a standard. The fork/copy itself may be quite good, even better than the original. However, anyone self-interested enough to fork it may also be self-interested enough to seek independent copyright or patent or even some trademark which prevent the original group from pursuing the same paths of development.

Free software actively tries to prevent self-interested forks, by required reintegration - often this is called a viral license. Open source was created by people who wanted self-interested forks to occur and also did not see the bad copy problem as an issue at all.

Consortium licenses tend to have the strongest and most specific restrictions on self-interested forks. Since they also have a Governance Organization that is independent, self-funding, and capable of suing, they can actually stomp out self-interested forks, e.g. Java consortium kept Microsoft from calling their libraries "Java" using the license and trademark.

The self-interested fork problem shows up in some worst cases and more than a few threats. To write one's own Consumerium buying signal will not only be a temptation, in some "businesses", it will be the only way to survive. These of course are exactly the businesses we do not want to survive, where "we" admittedly is factionally defined.

Factions are themselves an attempt to define and control self-interest in Consortium license definition. By creating the Consumerium License as a parametric license and providing a glossary of terms that factions can control for themselves, we hope to make it easier to work within the Consumerium Services than to duplicate them, but not so much easier that we effectively lose control of the centrally controlled information economy we need to keep authoritative integrity (validation) and investigative integrity (audit). Definitive integrity is an issue also, but not one of self-interest, and handled differently for each of the licensed deliverables.