Why won't epic open source their previous unreal engines?

>>55974600

https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?50490-Unreal-Engine-1&p=178527&viewfull=1#post178527

"We definitely can't open source Unreal Engine 2 or 3, because of dependencies on a large number of external closed-source middleware packages with complex licensing requirements.

Open sourcing Unreal Engine 1 might be possible, but getting the source and dependencies into a releasable state would take a lot of cleanup effort that we just haven't been able to find time for. I hope we can do it someday!"

>>55974900
I see

>>55974600
better question is why don't they open source the launcher so you can run it on linux with out having to pirate market place content and also look at all the good documentation on the engine