They could've avoided this at least partly with a sealed bid process and a (secret) minimum reasonable bid to disqualify ridiculous low bids. Advertising the fa

They could've avoided this at least partly with a sealed bid process and a (secret) minimum reasonable bid to disqualify ridiculous low bids. Advertising the fact there is a floor but not its value. At that point, rational bidders would have had no choice but to bid something they are willing to work for. Collusion between bidders is possible (as routinely happen for things like road paving...) but if there are enough bidders then it becomes impossible to collude with reasonable success expectations. Further a registry is needed to allow black listing of trolls and penalizing of folks who routinely fail to meet terms. It would also be possible to give slight weighted edge to bidders that have a history of delivering conformant implementations.