The DragonBox coding compo was a great success for the OpenPandora scene, it was divided in several categories so everyone could participate with their apps, original or ports. From my point of view a coding competition with good rewards would be very good to increase the software catalog for the zero.
I don't like people who makes money using someone elses work either, but what if the new changes were significant enough to deserve a reward? Just take a look at what notaz, exophase, ari, etc, did with pcsx-rearmed, which is based on PCSX-Reloaded (PCSX).