R22 and previous year's designs

[Gary Dillard]

OK after reading my last post and thinking about it, do you really need to publish your design if you are willing to share it if anyone asks for it?

If I know that team XYZ had a really nice omni wheel last year and I ask them for their design and they give it to me, and I know they would willingly give it to any team that asks, isn't that the same intent? How is finding the model online any different from seeing a design online, asking for it and getting it, other than actively publishing versus passively publishing it?

Also one other thing comes to mind, that I believe is technically not allowed but I would be willing to accept it. Suppose another team has a really nice CNC machined part they built last year and goes through the whole process of sharing their design, then they go to their partner company to have it made again this year. By the rules the company would have to recreate the CNC program from scratch before they build the part; do we really want to ask companies who are donating very expensive manufacturing resources to do that? I could probably live with letting them reuse the program.