The TargetRevenueLicense Framework is a canonical and extensible system for monetizing product exploration, software development, operation, services, consulting, sponsorship and other value-producing activities to drive open source and knowledge creation and evolution.
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tegwick 11f2dc3a6d Complete WP-0004 and WP-0005 jurisdiction research (8 of 8 each)
Executes all remaining shared jurisdictions across both workplans:
Germany/EU (deepened contract-law angle), US (deepened), UK (deepened),
Argentina, India, China, Africa (South Africa + OHADA), and Asia-Pacific
(Singapore, Japan, Australia) - 13 new history/ research artifacts.

Highest-priority findings:

- Australia's Unfair Contract Terms regime (expanded Nov 2023) covers
  standard-form contracts with any business under 100 employees/$10M
  turnover by default - the CUA is exactly such a contract, and most
  realistic Customers fall within this threshold. Unlike every other
  jurisdiction's consumer carve-out, this is not an edge case.
- China requires a "foreign-related" contract even to select foreign
  governing law, subject to a vague public-interest override even then -
  confirms a dedicated China rider is needed for both the License/CUA and
  the Enforcement Partner Agreement, not a shared global clause.
- India flatly prohibits advocate contingency fees (no exception gates,
  stricter than Germany) while explicitly permitting third-party
  litigation funding - the cleanest confirmation yet that the Litigation
  Funder/Local Counsel split-role model is both necessary and legal there.
- Japan's Article 12 fee-splitting rule means even the split-role
  fallback needs jurisdiction-specific structuring - the first case where
  the workaround itself, not just the original mechanism, has an open
  compliance question.
- Contingency Share ceilings vary widely where available: UK 50% (exact
  match), South Africa 25%, Argentina 35% (50% only with risk assumption),
  China 18% down to 6% on a sliding scale that shrinks as claims grow.
- Recurring cross-jurisdictional pattern (Germany, EU, US via CCPA,
  Argentina): B2B governing-law/liability clauses are respected, but an
  individual/sole-proprietor Customer's consumer-protection status is the
  operative risk everywhere, not a one-off edge case.

Updates specs/EnforcementNetworkConcept.md §8.1 with a full 12-jurisdiction
findings table and three cross-cutting conclusions. Updates both V1C1
documents' Appendix A items (governing law, liability cap, data
protection) with the most consequential findings. Both workplans now have
only their human-gated synthesis tasks (T09-T10 / T10) remaining.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-29 17:07:42 +02:00
docs/adr Accept ADR-0001 and close TREV-WP-0002 2026-07-29 02:07:22 +02:00
examples/phase-001 Implement TREV-WP-0002 Stage 0 foundation: schemas, pure fold, golden Phase 2026-07-28 18:47:29 +02:00
history Complete WP-0004 and WP-0005 jurisdiction research (8 of 8 each) 2026-07-29 17:07:42 +02:00
schemas Merge spec/ into specs/: one specs directory for the whole repo 2026-07-29 10:22:14 +02:00
scripts Merge spec/ into specs/: one specs directory for the whole repo 2026-07-29 10:22:14 +02:00
specs Complete WP-0004 and WP-0005 jurisdiction research (8 of 8 each) 2026-07-29 17:07:42 +02:00
src/target_revenue Merge spec/ into specs/: one specs directory for the whole repo 2026-07-29 10:22:14 +02:00
tests Merge spec/ into specs/: one specs directory for the whole repo 2026-07-29 10:22:14 +02:00
workplans Complete WP-0004 and WP-0005 jurisdiction research (8 of 8 each) 2026-07-29 17:07:42 +02:00
.custodian-brief.md chore(consistency): sync task status from DB [auto] 2026-07-29 15:21:41 +02:00
.gitignore Add public breach/termination record to TRSL V1C1 §7 (Trust Service) 2026-07-29 11:00:25 +02:00
.repo-classification.yaml Adapt specs and workplans to SWOT Stage 0 sequencing 2026-07-28 18:34:10 +02:00
CONTRIBUTING.md Merge spec/ into specs/: one specs directory for the whole repo 2026-07-29 10:22:14 +02:00
INTENT.md Adapt specs and workplans to SWOT Stage 0 sequencing 2026-07-28 18:34:10 +02:00
LICENSE Initial commit 2026-07-28 15:37:32 +00:00
pyproject.toml Implement TREV-WP-0002 Stage 0 foundation: schemas, pure fold, golden Phase 2026-07-28 18:47:29 +02:00
README.md Complete WP-0004 and WP-0005 jurisdiction research (8 of 8 each) 2026-07-29 17:07:42 +02:00
SCOPE.md Draft Commercial Use Agreement V1C1 template 2026-07-29 12:48:23 +02:00
WORK-RECORDS.md chore(consistency): write back state hub workstream/task IDs for WP-0005 2026-07-29 15:21:55 +02:00

target-revenue

Status: Concept and specification only (Stage 0). Not production legal text. Do not attach TRSL to production software yet.

The Target Revenue Framework (TRF) is a phased software monetization system: a defined development Phase accumulates Development Credit and Remission Credit against an immutable Initial Target until the Milestone Release automatically converts to a permissive Future License (MIT or Apache-2.0). A Trust Service publishes manifests, ledgers, extensions, and attestations as factual evidence — it does not decide conversion.

Commercial beneficiaries fund the creation and early availability of a software improvement; once the declared target is satisfied, the governed release becomes permissively open source.

Terminology guardrail

Before conversion, software under TRSL is source-available with commercial-use restrictions. It is not Open Source under the OSI Open Source Definition (field-of-endeavour non-discrimination). After the Conversion Event, the Milestone Release is available under the declared OSI-style Future License.

State Accurate label
Pre-conversion, noncommercial Source-available (permitted uses)
Pre-conversion, commercial Commercially licensed / entitlement required
Post-conversion Open source under Future License

Reading order

  1. INTENT.md — durable purpose and design principles
  2. SCOPE.md — what is in scope now vs later maturity
  3. specs/TargetRevenueLicenseConcept.md — normative concept draft (ultimate source; governs if it and the extracts below ever diverge)
  4. specs/ProductRequirementsDocument.md — goals, FRs, roadmap
  5. specs/TechnicalSpecificationDocument.md — schema field tables and boundaries
  6. specs/OpenQuestions-WorkingDefaults.md — provisional Stage 0 defaults

Exploration transcript (non-normative): history/260728-InitialExploration.md
Program assessment: history/260728-SWOT-Assessment.md

Normative documents (day-to-day reference)

Extracted and stabilized from the concept draft under workplans/TREV-WP-0003-normative-core-extraction.md (T01T05 done; T06 human review still open — see that workplan). Use these for terminology, not the concept draft's prose, in ordinary implementation work:

Document Covers
specs/TargetRevenueFrameworkCore.md Seven core terms, target formula, five-verb lifecycle, nine core rules, foundational invariants
specs/PhaseManifestSpecification.md Phase Manifest field tiers and validation rules
specs/TargetLedgerSpecification.md Ledger entry types, hash chain, Outstanding Target fold
specs/MonetizationExtensionSpecification.md Six-field extension contract, registered vs. canonical

Forbidden synonyms: do not treat undifferentiated "revenue captured" as equivalent to Development Credit (see CONTRIBUTING.md § Terminology); do not call pre-conversion software "Open Source" (see the guardrail table above).

TRSL license candidate

specs/TargetRevenueSourceLicense-V1C1.md is the first candidate written as actual operative license text (Version 1, Candidate 1) rather than a bracket-annotated skeleton — preliminary, not final, not for production use (see the notice at the top of that file). It is grounded in the prior-art and jurisdiction research archived under history/260729-TRSL-*.md, and supersedes the earlier skeleton now archived at history/260729-TargetRevenueSourceLicense-Draft.md.

specs/TargetRevenueCommercialUseAgreement-V1C1.md is the companion Commercial Use Agreement template the License refers to but does not itself set terms for — same preliminary-candidate status, but less mature than the License: it had no dedicated prior-art research pass, and its Section 13 (Indemnification) is deliberately left unwritten rather than guessed.

Enforcement Network concept

specs/EnforcementNetworkConcept.md is a new, separate concept (2026-07-29): independent, locally-licensed Enforcement Partners pursue unauthorized Commercial Use in their home jurisdiction for a share of Recovery, so License §3 enforcement scales without the Licensor litigating everywhere directly. The central open risk is that lawyer contingency fees are not legal everywhere — Germany notably restricts them — so the concept requires a jurisdiction-conditional Litigation Funder/Local Counsel structure, not a single global fee mechanism. Backed by workplans/TREV-WP-0005-enforcement-network-research.md; 9 of 10 tasks are done (all 8 jurisdictions plus mechanism design — see history/260729-TREN-*.md), only the human-gated synthesis remains. Findings: 50% is only exactly valid in the UK; most jurisdictions cap lower (1835%) or ban direct lawyer contingency outright (Germany, India); India cleanly confirms the split-role model is both necessary and legal there; Japan's fee-splitting rule means even the split-role fallback needs jurisdiction-specific structuring, not just an availability check.

Repository layout

Path Role
INTENT.md Stable purpose (change rarely)
SCOPE.md Living Stage 0 scope
specs/ Concept source, product/tech specs, working defaults, and normative extracts
workplans/ Active delivery plans
history/ Dated non-normative exploration and assessments
examples/ Golden Phase packages (phase-001, from WP-0002)
schemas/ Machine-readable JSON Schemas (WP-0002)
src/target_revenue/ Pure Python validators, hash chain, Outstanding Target fold, conversion detection (WP-0002)
docs/adr/ Architecture decisions; ADR-0001 (Stage 0 library stack) accepted 2026-07-29

spec/ vs specs/ (resolved 2026-07-29): the concept document originally lived under a separate singular spec/ directory, which history/260728-SWOT-Assessment.md flagged as a "perpetual footgun." It has been merged into specs/ alongside the product/tech specs and normative extracts — there is now one specs directory for the whole repository. The historical split, and the decision to merge it, remain visible in history/260728-SWOT-Assessment.md (unedited, as a dated record) rather than rewritten here.

Active work

Workplan Focus
TREV-WP-0001 Prior-art research (T01T05 done, archived to history/) → TRSL V1C1 license candidate (T06 ready for human review)
TREV-WP-0002 Schemas, pure Outstanding Target fold, golden fixture — finished
TREV-WP-0003 Extract stable normative core docs — T01T05 done, T06 human review open
TREV-WP-0004 Global jurisdictional research backing the License/CUA candidates — 8 of 10 tasks done (all jurisdictions; T09 choice-of-law strategy and T10 synthesis remain)
TREV-WP-0005 Enforcement Network legal feasibility research — 9 of 10 tasks done (all jurisdictions and mechanism design; T10 synthesis remains, human-gated)

Hub index: WORK-RECORDS.md · brief: .custodian-brief.md

Stage 0 library (schemas, pure fold, validators)

WP-0002 delivers an offline, dependency-light library — not a hosted Trust Service (SCOPE.md §3). It validates the schemas in schemas/, computes the pure Outstanding Target fold, verifies the SHA-256 hash chain, and checks Monetization Extension conformance.

pip install -e ".[dev]"
python3 -m pytest tests/            # 32 tests, no network required
python3 scripts/generate_golden_phase.py   # regenerate examples/phase-001/ledger.json

The implementation stack (Python, jsonschema, pytest, hatchling) is recorded in docs/adr/ADR-0001-stage0-library-stack.md, accepted 2026-07-29.

What this repo does not claim yet

  • Final legal license text or enforceable TRSL
  • A running production Trust Service
  • A finalized degeneration formula (research + working defaults only)
  • That any real product Phase is governed by TRF today

See SCOPE.md and CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

Repository contents are under MIT No Attribution unless a file states otherwise. That is the license of this repository, not the Target Revenue Source License for third-party software.