system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: If someone leaked the entirety of windows source code, would people be able to incorporate it into other operating systems in a way that allows windows applications and libraries to be used?

If so, how? If not, why?
gpt
Legally, no.  They could not use the leaked/stolen code in their own OS, because it is leaked/stolen.  Microsoft still owns the rights to it.  The same way they can't take a windows machine and reverse engineer the code from it (legally)

Illegally, they could try, but Microsoft would have them so tied up in lawsuits it wouldn't be worth the effort

However, there are already programs out there to allow Windows programs to run on other OSes, such as WINE.