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It's tax time in Australia. Three weeks into the new financial year, now is about the time when people have all their documentation ready to give the government its yearly pound of flesh. But for Linux users there's no joy again. What greets me at the ATO's website is this information: To lodge tax returns online, one needs a PC running Windows 2000 or XP. And the ATO advises further, "...because Windows uses security components of Internet Explorer, use any version of Internet Explorer 6."
I used to work for the ATO 2000- 2001. While there I agitated for the support of Linux and Mac by the ATO with their eTax software, as a lowly programmer, and contractor to boot, I doubt that my arguements got any further than my manager.
I knew personally the blokes who were responsible for the development of the etax software, and they personally had no interest in developing software outside of Microsoft standard ActiveX (COM) or MS Windows Explorer oriented .NET. In my experience no one I worked with was interested particularly in Cross browser, let alone cross OS development.
I would suggest that the PR hacks and the Management types that replied to the letters merely asked for comment from the technical people concerned, and were fobbed of with it's too hard, too expensive type stories. That is my experience of how things were done, and probably still are.
As to Microsoft being welded to the ATO, there are several very expensive Microsoft Consultants working within the ATO - advising management on technology directions. My experience of some of those Microsoft Consultants is that I knew Microsoft technology better than they did. My guess is that they are primarily PR types, there to keep a very important customer on board - interestingly, at the customers expense.
The Dutch tax office has been offering OSX and Linux versions for three years now :-)
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I knew personally the blokes who were responsible for the development of the etax software, and they personally had no interest in developing software outside of Microsoft standard ActiveX (COM) or MS Windows Explorer oriented .NET. In my experience no one I worked with was interested particularly in Cross browser, let alone cross OS development.
I would suggest that the PR hacks and the Management types that replied to the letters merely asked for comment from the technical people concerned, and were fobbed of with it's too hard, too expensive type stories. That is my experience of how things were done, and probably still are.
As to Microsoft being welded to the ATO, there are several very expensive Microsoft Consultants working within the ATO - advising management on technology directions. My experience of some of those Microsoft Consultants is that I knew Microsoft technology better than they did. My guess is that they are primarily PR types, there to keep a very important customer on board - interestingly, at the customers expense.