[Drew]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

First, read the rules.

That should be the first step in any FIRST endeavour. In fact, the rules don't prohibit the exchange of designs. And if a team decides that it will release its design to the FIRST community at large, what's unfair about making use of it? And further, if two or more teams decide that they want to use similar designs, once again, the rules do not prohibit it.

More to the point, I suspect, you've offered very shaky justification for your position—you imply that teams "cant figure out how to do this game so lets wait until another team gets an idea and let them give us the fabrication idea's parts, and help [sic]". Maybe for the most complacent of teams, that's the case. But for most of the collaborative designs that I've come across, the design is the result of a partnership, and not of one team doing all the work while its partners merely clone the end result.

Also, the analogy of a business is not appropriate, because it a FIRST team will often want to allow you access to their design. In business, that sort of thing is the exception; in FIRST it is commonplace. For this reason, you can't expect that a team will necessarily attempt to protect its designs, as if they were the trade secrets of a business. (In some cases, teams keep designs secret to maintain a competitive advantage; in others, they give freely. There is no rule on this matter either.)

i made sure that I implied that no rules were being broken because i know for a fact that none were. But definatly I agree with almost everything you say and i am not taking away anything that these teams have done i kinda feel that what i said now may have resulted with many diffrent range of emotions. I myself just love to see what teams can do on their own with or without the guidance of another team. You all have helped me come to understand how this is a good thing but maybe bad or unfair at times. I dont disagree with anything though.