[jka]

In practice I think it's likely that most law firms and jurisdictions who configure and accept business ownership structures enforce their terms in a nearly-as-restrictive manner. No doubt there are exceptions; a file format can be adjusted over time to handle those equally.

The file format should -- and to some extent, is already -- separated from the mechanism(s) of payment.

Version-controlled software development is social and provides history, evidence, and allows code to evolve over time; I like that this approach leverages those properties.