[thelist] Bobby not free anymore

[David.Cantrell at Gunter.AF.mil]

>I think this is a REAL shame.  I was working as a contractor for
>the US Govt when Bobby was 1st developed.  It was developed by
>the assistive tech folks at GSA, using good old american tax $.
>To me, this is just another example of the US govt spending our
>tax $ on R&D, only to give the finished product away to folks who
>make lots of $ off of it.  (It happens all the time in medical
>research/drugs.)  I'm wondering who we write to, if we're US
>citizens, to complain about this. (Our senators?  GSA?  OMB?)
>Good thing Bobby isn't the ONLY game in town any more.  Other
>accessibility checkers exist that cost $ (the one put out by HISC
>comes to mind.)

It was developed *BY* the GSA? Or by a contractor for GSA?

If it was developed BY a government entity, it should be public-domain
software. Period. This is not a university system, where we can make
something great using tax dollars and then spin off into a company and get
rich.

This may not mean Bobby as it currently is was developed by the GSA. Perhaps
the underlying algorithms and software were. There's nothing wrong with them
taking that (since it would be public-domain) and rolling an application
around it.

Then again, their site says it was developed by CAST, no mention of GSA
anywhere.

http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/about.jsp

-dave