Wow public domain license! Smart move, I assume those disgruntled devs who "joined a project to explore the “future of tax filing” in the private sector" can now easily fork it and compete with TurboTax directly (with, I hope, a much better product at a lower price). Normally that'd feel a bit scummy but in this case I can't fault them for it.
Here's to hoping they can outcompete TurboTax so brutally that Intuit won't be able to pay for all those lobbyists anymore.
Yes, works of the US Federal Government are public domain. It gets complicated when state governments, contractors, etc. are involved, but Direct File was in-house work by USDS/18F.
Yep, one of the more popular FOSS CNC controllers (LinuxCNC) draws its heritage from a NIST project, and at least one major manufacturer ships a variant of it in their machines.
> Releasing Direct File’s source code demonstrates that the IRS is fulfilling its obligations under the SHARE IT Act[1] (three weeks ahead of schedule!).
Although it is written in the "LICENSE" file for purposes of uniformity and GitHub compatibility, a dedication to the Public Domain is not a "license". As you can see, they waive all their rights to claim copyright protection, and therefore, no license is possible; no license is necessary to use it for any purpose.
And yes, "As a work of the US Government" it is dedicated to the Public Domain by law.
Here's to hoping they can outcompete TurboTax so brutally that Intuit won't be able to pay for all those lobbyists anymore.