> demonstrate using basic logic that the simplest components of two source trees (something that is extremely basic)

If you think that is "extremely basic" I think you may be overestimating how poorly 1 in 12 people understand computer related concepts. I suspect it is far more, but I am biased.

Before software development I worked tech support. I have heard some nightmarish misunderstandings. I have had people who literally thought files in the computer were tiny pieces of paper (and just magnified or something, this person's view was not logically coherent). When explained otherwise many met my explanation with conspiracy theories, disbeliefs, explanation of the physical impossibility of solid state transistors and sometimes, the very best of times, interest and a promise to do extra research on the the off chance I might be right.

I have conversed with many, perhaps hundreds who literally could not understand the concept of a file. They knew that inside the magic box was 1s and 0s. In general they even had the vaguest idea that electrons or magnetism somehow stored those 1s and 0s, but the idea they could be organized into a into units smaller and more discrete that "the magic box" was so alien and unacceptable to their world view that they could not or would not accept it. Many simply didn't want to know, but a few brave souls tried and sometimes got themselves in to great trouble needing many help tickets to undo the results of their learning experiments.

There were several people who thought there computers were terminals to some server somewhere and could not accept that their information was stored locally. No amount of explanations that the C: Drive was a device in their computer could shake the notion that Earthlink or whoever else I was working for had the files. These people wanted so badly to believe their lives where so simple (or whatever they wanted to believe) that they could not possibly have a device the size of a laptop that was powerful to hold the contents of a bookshelf filled with novels and reference material. Maybe these people were just too confused about where facebook (myspace back then) posts went and could not compare that to where ms word documents went.

Then there were people who could never learn to navigate file tree. People, hundreds and hundreds of people, who could save and open documents, but when they accidentally clicked and dragged a document lost the moved document forever despite it just being in the wrong subfolder. These sad people would often have 10 versions of a document sometimes in the same folder with subtlety different names and they could never quite understand what they were looking when presented with the list of files produced by their misguided instruction. At least one such person is in my immediate family, I no longer do tech support for only because she has medical conditions that prevent computer use entirely, but after 15 or so years she never gained and understanding of file tree.

You want to explain to a group of 12 with no guarantee of prior knowledge how two files trees can be alike, yet not be so similar as to be copyright infringement. I commend you for your effort, I consider it a heroic task, and entirely possible if the 12 people all take to your explanation. I think it is more likely to fail entirely for some amount of those people.