[tux]

I agree that the scoring software should be open source (and Free, if possible) as should all of the code used for FIRST Robotics. This is all about learning, after all.

I can see some possible objection that the scoring system should be in place before the announcement of the competition, but at our regional competition it seemed that the scoring system was not complete even after the competition (no rankings during the competion, and no scores at all during the practice rounds).

Is Free Software the answer to every programming question? No (yes ;o) But at least at this level (students, learning about how systems work, and how people work together on systems) I see no reason not to use open code.