Well, that was an interesting anecdote.
But usually VC-funded companies have a board majority of said VC's, so they can overrule the founders anytime they want to.
Most commonly that's used to fire the founders and appoint a pet CEO (sorry, professional manager) who happened to go to school with one of the VC's.
So taking a story to them about "giving away our source code" would end up with the same result in most cases.
I think I have a better understanding of how the incentives to cooperate would be hard to overcome even if you technically have the power as a founder (and even if you’re already financially independent).
The personal experience was also interesting - thanks!