I don't think anyone is suggesting they would be uploading code. A snapshot means no dynamic BGS, no pushing numbers around or evolving galaxy. Since cheating is no longer an issue, mods would be able to change ship stats, add personal paint kits etc etc, nothing to do with heavily modifying the core game.
There is a ton of stuff in this game locked down, all because this is an online shared galaxy.
i don't follow. i was referring to baben's statement:
"matching client and servers and game world state), and would release such an archive if the servers were to come down"
which essentially means pushing the client code, the server code and the game state data; 'snapshot' here represents that what's needed for anyone to take over the game as it is at that moment. community would need to be able to, at the bare minimum, rebuild and deploy the servers and import the data. clients could be reused if the 'calling home' addresses can be configured or patched, but ideally should be buildable as well. and, of course, modded and modified, but that's the next step.
my point is that for this to happen frontier has to release the source code, and it has to be legal and practical. this may or may not be the case at that point. nothing to do with modding.