Skip to content

The IRS Tax Filing Software TurboTax Is Trying to Kill Just Got Open Sourced

Technology
145 79 1.2k
  • CC0 is a horrible thing to use for software. It seems great, but it specifically does not give patent rights. Compare that to MIT which implicitly does so. CC0 specifically says it does not.

    The US government doesn't (to my knowledge at least) have copyright protections so MIT wouldn't be possible. BSD 0-Clause is just better because e.g. Austria doesn't allow you to cede copyright to the public domain and CC0 directly mentions the public domain in the terms of the license.

  • Not behind, ahead. Just you wait.

    Uh no … the US is behind on this and payment platforms and invoice creation and a ton of other shir

  • Could you explain why this is bad? Software patents aren’t a great thing, are they?

    Correct. They're bad. And if someone releases code under CC0 that has patented stuff in it you may be liable for using their patent without permission because CC0 says in section 4a,

    No trademark or patent rights held by Affirmer are waived, abandoned, surrendered, licensed or otherwise affected by this document.

    Compare that to MIT which is considered to implicitly grant patent rights by saying you may deal in the software without restriction. Apache specifically gives you explicit patent rights in section 3.

    Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted. If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.

    So the problem is that CC0 in it's public license fallback specifically says that it does not grant patent rights.

    CC0 is a trap for software. Please avoid it. Please encourage others so avoid it.

    To the extent of my knowledge, the only public domain dedication with permissive license fallback that is approved by both FSF and OSI is the WTFPL. Which is also a crayon license. Public domain is a weird concept and not all jurisdictions have it and not all jurisdictions allow you to manually put things into it. This is why they need the permissive license fallback. You're better off using a well known and well understood permissive license.

  • Uh no … the US is behind on this and payment platforms and invoice creation and a ton of other shir

    I'm not sure you got what I meant, which was that the US may end up dragging others in its wake. Time will tell. I just know it's not just the US that has seen a rise in right wing politics.

    And so, yeah, I said it kind of tongue in cheek, but I'm concerned it's the start of a trend. But hey, maybe there's an asteroid inbound.

  • The US government doesn't (to my knowledge at least) have copyright protections so MIT wouldn't be possible. BSD 0-Clause is just better because e.g. Austria doesn't allow you to cede copyright to the public domain and CC0 directly mentions the public domain in the terms of the license.

    Interesting, SPDX does not list 0BSD as FSF approved, but FSF does approve it. This isn't the first problem I've seen with SPDX's list. They say CC0 is FSF approved but FSF only says it is approved for things besides code.

  • I'm not sure you got what I meant, which was that the US may end up dragging others in its wake. Time will tell. I just know it's not just the US that has seen a rise in right wing politics.

    And so, yeah, I said it kind of tongue in cheek, but I'm concerned it's the start of a trend. But hey, maybe there's an asteroid inbound.

    Here the second right most party just let the coalition fall

  • Here the second right most party just let the coalition fall

    Can you elaborate a bit, as far as where here is and what coalition? I have ideas but I don't wanna make assumptions. And obviously that's is you feel comfortable doing so, not trying to blow you up. But I'm interested in what's happening elsewhere you know? And I am just not sure I trust the news.

  • Can you elaborate a bit, as far as where here is and what coalition? I have ideas but I don't wanna make assumptions. And obviously that's is you feel comfortable doing so, not trying to blow you up. But I'm interested in what's happening elsewhere you know? And I am just not sure I trust the news.

    In NL Geert Wilders let the coalition fall but it was one of the worst coalitions we have had

  • Correct. They're bad. And if someone releases code under CC0 that has patented stuff in it you may be liable for using their patent without permission because CC0 says in section 4a,

    No trademark or patent rights held by Affirmer are waived, abandoned, surrendered, licensed or otherwise affected by this document.

    Compare that to MIT which is considered to implicitly grant patent rights by saying you may deal in the software without restriction. Apache specifically gives you explicit patent rights in section 3.

    Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted. If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.

    So the problem is that CC0 in it's public license fallback specifically says that it does not grant patent rights.

    CC0 is a trap for software. Please avoid it. Please encourage others so avoid it.

    To the extent of my knowledge, the only public domain dedication with permissive license fallback that is approved by both FSF and OSI is the WTFPL. Which is also a crayon license. Public domain is a weird concept and not all jurisdictions have it and not all jurisdictions allow you to manually put things into it. This is why they need the permissive license fallback. You're better off using a well known and well understood permissive license.

    Thank you for the through explanation! That was very helpful

  • Was the US so behind that they didn't have a way to file taxes online for free?

    Not just that. The tax preparation industry has gotten tax more complex and harder to file in the US

    You get the government you can afford. The tax preparation industry has been able to buy several governments

  • 374 Stimmen
    125 Beiträge
    18 Aufrufe
    noughtnaut@lemmy.worldN
    This is what I call "confidently wrong". If you ask it about things you have no clue about, it seems incredibly well-informed and insightful. Ask it something you know deeply, and you'll easily see it's just babbling and spouting nonsense - sure makes you wonder about those earlier statements it made, doesn't it?
  • How to Setup a Secure Ubuntu Home Server

    Technology technology
    12
    1
    95 Stimmen
    12 Beiträge
    67 Aufrufe
    U
    Thanks :D!
  • 86 Stimmen
    31 Beiträge
    254 Aufrufe
    A
    You don’t have the power to decarbonize all electricity From the article: Location also affects how carbon emissions are managed. Germany has the largest carbon footprint for video streaming at 76g CO₂e per hour of streaming, reflecting its continued reliance on coal and fossil fuels. In the UK, this figure is 48g CO₂e per hour, because its energy mix includes renewables and natural gas, increasingly with nuclear as central to the UK’s low-carbon future. France, with a reliance on nuclear is the lowest, at 10g CO₂e per hour. This is a massive difference, and clearly doable, nothing that would be limited to the distant future. So I get this right? I'm naive for expecting govt regulations to put companies' behaviour under control, whereas you're realistic by expecting hundreds of millions of people deciding to systematically minimise their Youtube/Tiktok/Spotify/Netflix/Zoom usage? Hmm, alright. And yet in an another comment you also expect that Spotify shouldn't introduce video streaming, without any external regulation but out of pure goodness of their hearts?
  • 469 Stimmen
    28 Beiträge
    362 Aufrufe
    C
    Corrupted politicians and greedy people don't want you know about this one neat truck to fix climate crisis.... Oh, too late.
  • 274 Stimmen
    68 Beiträge
    2k Aufrufe
    A
    intellectual property is grotesque. under no circumstances a creator should be barred from his creation. if shit like that happens I'd rather there not be any intellectual property at all
  • 1k Stimmen
    78 Beiträge
    660 Aufrufe
    K
    I just hear that they move to LibreOffice but not to Linux, ateast not right now.
  • 105 Stimmen
    173 Beiträge
    2k Aufrufe
    smartmanapps@programming.devS
    the proper way is to group it as 1+(-2)+3 No it isn't. you can do it in any order You can do it in any order anyway left to right 1-2+3=-1+3=2 addition first 1+3-2=4-2=2 subtraction first -2+1+3=-1+3=2 right to left 3-2+1=1+1=2 What I meant with ““rule”” is the meme questions pray on people not understanding/remembering what the actual rules are And you showed that you were one of them. Every answer you got other than 4 was wrong, because you didn't understand the rules. spoiler alert: doing it in different orders never means add brackets to it. Addition first for 10-1+1 is 10+1-1, not 10-(1+1). See previous textbook example why “left to right” conventions exist They exist because people like you make mistakes when you try to do it in a different order. Either learn how the rules work or stop spreading disinformation. Well, you should stop spreading disinformation regardless.
  • Elon Musk's X temporarily down for tens of thousands of users

    Technology technology
    1
    1
    0 Stimmen
    1 Beiträge
    15 Aufrufe
    Niemand hat geantwortet