Where did you find frclinks.com? That's a nifty idea.
I don't know how well one parsing method works against others, a regex will work as long as they don't add a new table to the document, and don't add non-numerical data. Likewise, an HTML parser will, and will also properly handle entities like < , but any change in structure will not work (though that is a simple parameter change telling it the new path to the data). I just use the DOM and SimpleXML parsers in PHP, Python (eewww, Python) must have something similar.
I have an initiative to standardize how FIRST data is published,
XML Interchange format. An example that mixes the rankings and schedule:
Code:
<event season="2009" code="GLR">
<team number="67" game:rank="1" game:win="12" game:lost="0" game:tie="0" game:plays="0" game:qs="24.00" game:rs="51.75" game:mp="117" />
...
<match type="qualification" number="1" time="11:45">
<alliance name="red">
<team position="1" number="1940"/>
<team position="2" number="216"/>
<team position="3" number="123"/>
</alliance>
<alliance name="blue">
<team position="1" number="1896"/>
<team position="2" number="468"/>
<team position="3" number="894"/>
</alliance>
</match>
...
</event>
Where game is some XML namespace (if you like).
As for licensing, as a rule of thumb, if the code is shorter then the license would be, I put it in public domain.