On Sun, 15 Feb 2004 11:47, Robert Lunnon wrote:
Mind you if the leak can be proved deliberate, then a deliberate release of such code might render the copyrights ineffective, since Microsoft was knowingly giving the code out for distribution....
No. Copyright is designed to protect published works. The fact that the code itself is in the open has no implication whatsoever for the validity of Microsoft's copyrights. Software source code is commonly kept secret, but this is a protective measure additional to copyright, not part of copyright protection.