Could you please kindly tell me what IRS stands for?
IRS Makes Direct File Software Open Source After Trump Tried to Kill It
Submitted 2 months ago by remington@beehaw.org to technology@beehaw.org
Comments
kaeurenne@lemmy.kadaikupi.space 2 months ago
Powderhorn@beehaw.org 2 months ago
The Internal Revenue Service. It’s the U.S. tax collection agency, created a bit over a century ago under, shall we say, questionable circumstances.
GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
What do you mean by questionable circumstances?
jagged_circle@feddit.nl 2 months ago
Licensed CC0. Assholes.
kureta@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Why assholes?
pineapplelover@lemm.ee 2 months ago
For profit companies can take it, close source it, and make it paid software. Which is why GPL is superior.
jagged_circle@feddit.nl 2 months ago
Because it’s a gift to corporations at the expense of taxpayers.
It means that any company can take that code, modify it (as would be required every year per IRS tax changes), and resell it without being required to publish the source code changes.
What many European countries are doing is requiring the government to publish code under a copyleft license. That would allow companies to also benefit from this code to make their own tools (which they could also sell), and it would require them to publish the source code of their improvements.
Basically copyleft legally ensures collaboration. Public domain does not.
jawa22@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Isn’t most software made by the US government required to be open source anyway?
secret300@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
Ahahahahaha this is America we’re talking about
jagged_circle@feddit.nl 2 months ago
Actually, it’s illegal for them to make software copyleft :(
We need to change that law :(
jawa22@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
That’s just untrue. The NSA even has a pretty cool repo.
JayDee@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
Based IRS. So the torch will need to be carried by open source devs.
ryannathans@aussie.zone 2 months ago
Article says it was always required to be open source and it is not an act of defiance
teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
Cooperating with the law is often percieved as an act of defiance with this administration, though.
megopie@beehaw.org 2 months ago
I suspect that they’ve been pressured to keep it out of public by turbo tax lobbyists, but with the straight on attempt to kill it lately, they decided just to ignore that pressure and push it out to spite those lobbyists.