I would say software and hardware is a form of art. And needs to be preserved.
This is our generations history and we need to be able to keep games and applications usable overtime.
I think it should be required for companys when they shutdown the servers for games that are always online, the server software should be realeased to the community, With the condition they cannot make any money off it.

Also hacking hardware to be able to use it for other unintended uses is incredibly important, as it allows it to be used for a long time beond the manufactour supporting it. for instance any device using like eg ios 6 is basicly usless without a jailbreak.