Gr1ff1th said:

Because the Army and GD specifically used the word "Novated", which by definition is a temporary lease of patent rights to a lessee (in this case TV/LSFW)

I think you are mistaken.   I could find no definition which says novation is a temporary lease.

Example:

"Novation is the process by which the original contract is extinguished and replaced with another, under which a third party takes up rights and obligations duplicating those of one of the parties to the original contract. This means that the original party transfers both the benefits and burdens under the contract."

You're right, I don't know where I got the temporary part from, my bad

Exactly. It makes no sense at all: winning the bid would be a long-term contract for re-equipping US forces and possibly some NATO forces. Indeed the amount of money would be so big as for adquiring TV instead of quitting from the program. 

"OK, Textron is going to lose so we quit and give the victory to TV alone because reasons"

Well GD straight up invented the .338 LWMMG concept, popularized the idea and worked behind the scenes to have the .338 become a govt contract program…then abandoned it. So they are kinda weird like that.

But who knows. At this point we just have to wait for more news.

But there was no request from DoD about .338 MG. Now there is an official program, the need to overcome personal armor and a very high possibility of making a nice mountain of money from all the program. We are talking about rearming the entire squad of several armies during decades

poliorcetes said:

But there was no request from DoD about .338 MG.

No thats what I'm saying - GD managed to get the DoD program created, $ on the table for SOCOM and possibly the wider Army/Marines - and has apparently then decided to drop out. 

https://soldiersystems.net/2017/03/20/gd/

Worked on it from 2012 to 2019-20, and then suddenly it was no longer on their website and no more info was out there about it. 

Now I understand. But anyways, a LWMMG was not easy to integrate in any organic structure, while rifles and assault rifles are and by the hundreds of thousands. Hombre, it's a totally different scale

I can fill in the missing backstory here for you guys...

The short version is the USG has fucked GD somewhere between 5 and a dozen times in the last 3-4 decades and I suspect gd smelled a familiar smell from this program that has burned them so many times before.

This also pretty handily explains why they took the low effort bullpup route that's based off of their existing patent portfolio which the US gov has jacked them around on and cancelled programs within sight of the finish line on multiple times before this round.

While I'm sure GD didn't eat the WHOLE COST of the previous programs, the USG and big green gave screwed them every time they've tried to play in this sector.

I can give you a PARTIAL LIST of programs here 

Dover devil / lwgphmg

Lwgpmg 

Xm307, xm806, xm312, and several others I'm certain I'm forgetting but basically this comes down to 5 times bitten 6th shy.

how about a .20 caliber /5mm, with similar energies to the .224 valkirie or 220 swift.....

total size would be much smaller than 762

Textron being called out by TFB:

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2021/11/18/textron-ngsw-program/

A source associated with Textron’s participation in the NGSW program confirmed that ‘Textron are no longer in the project’ and that the US Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapons program is now likely to be between SIG Sauer and Lone Star Future Weapons’ submissions.

Following up on this we gained independent confirmation from a number of industry sources that Textron has withdrawn from the program reportedly due to issues with weapon and ammunition that emerged during testing.

...

In terms of the NGSW program’s progress Lt. Col. Joshua Headley, the NGW program’s new product manager, advised that it may be towards the end of the year when we hear which submission has been selected.

Alternatively, the Army Times reported that Maj. Gen. Anthony Potts, commander of Program Executive Officer Soldier (PEO), has stated that a selection is expected by mid-2022. This would be a considerable delay when the original selection announcement was planned for the second half of 2021.