I sometimes wonder if leaked source code has any value, especially code like that that doesn't contain secrets that could be taken advantage of by hackers (ex: keys, backdoors, ...).
The leak obviously doesn't come with any license, so you can't reuse that code for your own products, at least not if you don't want to get sued. So it means that in order to take advantage of the code for your own work, you need to read it, understand the techniques, and apply them to your own work in a way that doesn't smell like copyright infringement. More often than not, it is harder to do than going from scratch, and in cases it is advantageous, how often will you get a real competitive advantage?
Developers often write code from scratch even when they could use open source code that is well documented and with a permissive license. Reading code is often harder than writing it. Even just rebuilding it may be challenging.
It may facilitate piracy, but barely, games often got cracked and distributed within days, and the copy protection may not even be part of the source code.
If I'm not mistaken, Microsoft now owns all of the old Sierra IP (if I'm not mistaken, the chain of custody was: Sierra -> CUC -> Cendant -> Havas -> Vivendi Universal -> Activision Blizzard -> Microsoft) and I wouldn't expect Microsoft to sue over old source code to a 40-year old game engine with a graphics resolution of 160x200. In fact, given that they've been gradually opening source code for DOS from the same era, they might even be convinced to make an official release of it.
The leak obviously doesn't come with any license, so you can't reuse that code for your own products, at least not if you don't want to get sued. So it means that in order to take advantage of the code for your own work, you need to read it, understand the techniques, and apply them to your own work in a way that doesn't smell like copyright infringement. More often than not, it is harder to do than going from scratch, and in cases it is advantageous, how often will you get a real competitive advantage?
Developers often write code from scratch even when they could use open source code that is well documented and with a permissive license. Reading code is often harder than writing it. Even just rebuilding it may be challenging.
It may facilitate piracy, but barely, games often got cracked and distributed within days, and the copy protection may not even be part of the source code.