Does anyone know of work on a middle ground between open source and closed source where you can get a license to do what you want with some source if your reputation is okay.

How it would work: - Users create an minimal cryptographic identity for a nominal fee (this is not tied to their real identity), registered with an reputation tracking organisation.

- Users then use that identity to request a license for a piece of software of a specific version (git sha or version number) from the reputation provider.

- The software checks the license at start up cryptographiucally comes from a set of providers and also uses the identity included with the license when identifying as a client or server (to allow further reputation checks to be made).

This won't stop all bad actors but the idea is to make it obviously illegal to use the software if the people using it get a bad enough reputation.

I'd be interested in using simulations of software ecosystems to stress test any implementations and see if getting identities should be made harder.

But I thought I would see if there was prior art.