Quote from Eric Raymond’s response (to be used in our knowl. reuse paper)?

Software is not composed of interchangeable parts that can be hodded from one project to another like a load of bricks. Context and interfaces are everything; unless it has been packaged into a library specifically intended to move, moving software between projects is more like an organ transplant, with utmost care needed to resect vessels and nerves. The kind of massive theft you are implying is not just contingently rare, it is necessarily rare because it is next to impossible.