[c6400sc]

I don't have such a conspiratorial take on this. Based on my previous experience in GovTech, I think this is what happened:

The project team specs out a procurement. The procurement team gets bids and handles the bureaucracy of awarding the contract. After reviewing bids, the project team selects or shortlists finalists. A special part of the procurement team then handles negotiations. The negotiators usually know little to nothing about the project other than costs. In order to get a lower price, they will negotiate away things that the project team considers important but aren't spelled out in the requirements.

Some of those things that gets easily negotiated away are rights for designs and data, even when gov't pays for their development. Negotiators are just looking for the lowest price for this particular project at this time. After all, there may or may not be extra costs in the future; they can claim wins on lower definite costs right now. Bidders know this game, and are ready and waiting to charge extra bucks for change orders down the line.

I was a lead on a multi-million dollar open-first project for gov't. I was shocked how easily someone I'd never met gave away the rights to reproduce mounting brackets. And it was no surprise that we were locked into buying extra parts that could have been fabbed elsewhere for cheaper.