[solidsnack9000]

A model that could align incentives better is putting the IP in a trust with the development company as a trust management corporation, with developers, managers, &c, functioning as trustees. Users buy in to the trust -- their license will be a kind of share -- and thus users are beneficiaries.

In order to make any use of the project, users also have to be trustees. This model allows restrictions on what they use it for, what they disclose, &c, because users must agree to certain terms as part of becoming trustees.

Because the development company is a trustee, their incentives are different from those of software companies that own IP: trustees have a fiduciary duty to act in the interests of beneficiaries (even though trust management companies can have their own shares and shareholders, they nevertheless have a fiduciary duty to the beneficiaries).

One of the benefits of open source is that it's possible to arrange for succession if a company stalls out. No one is breaking the law by continuing to develop on the basis of the old IP. Organizing the software as a trust with users as beneficiaries makes it relatively easy to manage succession, as well, since the beneficiaries are the ultimate owners of the property contained in the trust and have a power to appoint new trustees as well as remove old ones.