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by samrus 1132 days ago
I would imagine because of the self barter nature of open source. Open source only works when the group that can make the tools are also the group that uses them. So they are bartering with themselves. That's how they "pay" for it. But contributing back to the shared pool of resources

Taxpayers can't contribute back to the pool that software engineers use. The people who build it will not be "compensated" with other tools that they can the use for free. So they don't build them
2 comments
MontyCarloHall 1132 days ago
>Open source only works when the group that can make the tools are also the group that uses them

Counterpoint: Blender is a wildly successful open-source 3D modeling tool. Yet the majority of Blender developers are not 3D artists, and the majority of Blender artists are not developers.

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deeg 1132 days ago
Maybe it should be open source but read-only. The only opposition to a government filing system that I think makes any sense is that we shouldn't necessarily trust the government to get the taxes right*. Making the tax software open source (or public) would mitigate that concern.

* - It's not something that I'm concerned about but I think some skepticism of the government is healthy if easily addressed.

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