Well, pixar is now a part of Disney, and Disney has open source program http://www.disneyanimation.com/technology/index.html namely ptex. Also, advantage pixar holds is not really technological, it is about their content creators. I would even argue that PDI/Dreamworks has tech advantage, even Imageworks. Also, it has become a fashion of sorts to release stuff into the wild by animation companies:
http://www.disneyanimation.com/technology/index.html
http://www.openexr.com/ (ILM)
http://opensource.imageworks.com/
http://www.openvdb.org/ (dreamworks)
there are other examples, but I don't have links on this laptop now.