hackiavelli

I believe existing IP law already covers this. Disney still maintains exclusivity over Mickey as one of their trademarks (and will forever). It's the Steamboat Willie shorts themselves that would be going into the public domain when the copyright expires.

I can definitely see it having a negative effect. I don't do bounties anymore. It was too easy to get ripped off. They're basically a freelance gig with no guarantee of getting paid and no deposit to protect you when the person disappears after the work is done.

Thing is I likely would have done the work anyway. Bugs are community issues that effect everyone and contributing fixes for them keeps an open source project vibrant and active. But instead of feeling good about fixing some obscure bug I felt like I'd been used by someone who didn't want to pay for a developer.

I'm always resistant to putting up "trust logos" on a website. It's like training users to fall for phishing scams: you can trust me because I say you can trust me. Sure, the user can click the link to the verifying site, but how many do? Of those, how many would be able to spot it if you were redirecting them to a look-alike you set up?

I'd much rather train users to trust their SSL connection based on what their browser says rather than what I do.