The private servers have been up a while. But it is always hard for fan projects to gain traction for devs, players, or donations, when the IP could be yanked at any time. NCSoft granting a license should provide one heck of a shot in the arm for this cult classic game.
Go. Hunt. KILL Skul!
Still probably better than slapping them with a lawsuit.
Not to say I wouldn’t prefer they just put the leaked source code under the GPL or something. But it’s better than just being assholes because they can.
It is possible NCSoft is getting something out of this, though. More control over how third-party servers do things or some such.
They gain some protection for the brand and retain the trademarks associated with it by licensing instead of ignoring, and get this for free vs the ongoing expense in private server whackamole.