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Comment by ars_technician | Hacker News Reader

Leaked source code does not end a company. Tone back the melodrama.

A legitimate company cannot use stolen code like that, and prezi isn't the type of service with ground breaking algorithms to copy into other code.

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Sure, in that possibility, that is very true in that nobody could build a full fledged knockoff product. But, what concepts or features that could result in cheap knockoffs? Designed attacks? Password leaks and user privacy breaches? Customer information that can be sold to competitors? All of the bad PR and loss of business as a result?

You would also have access to their development branches which would give insight into future product features and bug fixes that have not yet been released. The former would be useful information to give to competitors and really put the company into a tough position to compete down the line while the latter could be used to find possible critical holes to exploit.

My point exactly. There are numerous situations that could doom their product.

> used to find possible critical holes to exploit.

If a competitor did this, they are risking having their entire business shut down for hacking. Seriously, what are you thinking?

Who says a competitor has to be the one to exploit security holes? It is much more likely that the source code would be sold on the black market to those who have no qualms about doing this for gain.

>Password leaks and user privacy breaches? Customer information that can be sold to competitors?

Source code does not include that information. Do you know how software works?

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