[avalaunch]

I've never been to a hackathon. Could someone explain the fresh code requirement to me? I assume you can use open source packages and open source snippets. What if you're one of, or the only, author of the code? What about snippets of code that you wrote that aren't open source that you often use in projects?

[kcon]

This is very much a grey area. Most hackathons I've attended restrict previously written code to open-source projects, with the idea that it's fair game if all participants have access to it. I think it's hard to police because projects aren't usually audited, and if someone utilizes private, frequently-used code snippets like you mention, that's even harder to catch.