I can't help but think that candidate should feel lucky to have escaped that car crash. Think about how hard up your company would have to be to ship code that someone else has written with no warranty, no support and not even the knowledge that their code would go into production. Just yuck!

If they paid for the work like more reputable companies do, that wouldn't have been a problem.

So it was an accurate depiction of what they would be working on? It seems like this is akin to the goal.

And yet, a for-profit company getting free consulting time under the aegis of an interview strikes me as unethical.

I suppose that's true; no test like production.

I think it was probably a good thing that he was declined, a company that would do that probably isn't a great place to work.

That is... missing the point.

That's missing a tangential point, but not THE ostensible point (topical)?