IMO, it's a troll looking to poke at a larger subject which may actually have longer-term ramifications. I think the applicable rule which allows this is <R11>, as outlined in Example 1:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by <R11> Example 1
The company’s material cost and normally charged labor rate apply
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FIRST would have a very hard time governing this. Paying for software development is a very tricky game in and of itself. What if the client isn't happy? Sure they'll get negative rep. but there goes a team's season. What if the client keeps changing what they want and therefore will never be happy? The programmer may not even get paid. What if such-and-such breaches the contract and now the team's school is being sued - is FIRST liable - parents are very litigation-happy, after all.
Even if a team can navigate that, the considerations do not stop there. Professional consultants with 10 years of documented positive testimonials can easily get $75-$100/hr for a high-value client. College students who've worked closed problems for 4 years, more like $16-$21/hr (pretty typical for an internship). FIRST alumni who did FRC programming for 4 years could probably net more than $16/hr due to the specialty, but how much more given the total cap on robot expenditures? What regional ramifications are there for programmer pay - a programmer who's worth $100/hr in San Fransisco isn't worth half that in rural Georgia simply due to cost of living adjustments, yet each must live within the $4k robot cost.
GP in this context is irrelevant. The client & consultant aren't competing with each other, nor is there necessarily a public disclosure of the details of an arrangement. It's a non-traditional and perhaps therefore frowned-upon" practice. Yet for hungry college kids who aren't looking to swindle a team, it could be a highly mutually beneficial experience.
A curious question IMO, is whether or not it's GP for Team A to enact a non-compete agreement with a programmer so the programmer doesn't help Team B who's 10 minutes down the road.
Edit - totally missed that this is a team being paid for another team's services. If there are governing entities involved (like school districts) add another layer of bureaucracy, yet otherwise the same issues apply. Otherwise the Team performing the services becomes the "company" in <R11>.