Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Australian Tax Office Adopts Open Source Software

Posted by timothy on from the updated-fleecing-techniques dept.

James Roberts writes "AustralianIT is reporting today that the Australian Tax Office, or ATO (Australian IRS equivalent) has ditched its standard Microsoft SOE and will now adopt the Linux operating system 'where appropriate.' It was reported late last year that the ATO was originally considering Longhorn as its preferred SOE. This is a big step for Australian Federal Government, who have been slow in the uptake of open source policies despite ongoing petitioning by several high profile pressure groups."

8 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Off the shelf or custom? by MacFury · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Just what operations are they moving to open source? Is this the standard day to day operating tasks such as word processing and spreadsheets, or are they writing custom software?

  2. Why start in the tax office? by seriv · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Shouldn't the ITs over there start with thing less important then tax records to start with converting computers to Open Source? Don't get me wrong, I am all for a switch anywhere, but why start with such a massive undertaking?

    1. Re:Why start in the tax office? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      IBM Websphere is not particularly valid point in the context of this article. The idea that deploying a Websphere based Intranet solution is actually cost effective is quite ridiculous to me.

      I am, right now, sitting next to a bunch of developers who are battling to get a single part of a Websphere implementation to work, let alone be productive. The current word is that the leader of the team should probably be looking for a new job because of the current budget blow-out.

      Sure, apache is no doubt working beautifully behind the scenes here, but from what I've heard that would be the only thing working. IBM have promised us the world, and are now helping us towards fulfilling that promise, without very much success.

      Developing an Intranet solution based on Websphere has little to do with what web server its running on, and more to do with the content management tools it provides, how easy it is to have it co-exist and integrate with existing applications, and how clear the business are in defining the requirements.

      Luckily, here, management are smart enough to understand that the problems lie with IBM's solution, and not the fact that we're using open-source software

  3. Does this mean... by propellor_head · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Does this mean that in future, e-tax (the software the ATO provides for people to lodge their own personal returns) will run on Linux? At present it only runs on Windows.

  4. They still have a ways to go ... by calmdude · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Their web site runs IIS.

  5. Yes, No by quinkin · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Who says they are "non-profit(sic) sales teams"? You don't think the Initiative for Software Choice doesn't get a kickback for scuttling another Open Source bill?

    Having friends within the ATO I can tell you with certainty that no savings will be passed on to the public.

    That said, we may incur LESS additional budget bloat (a fixture since the introduction of GST and the complete farce of it's implementation).

    Q.

    --
    Insert Signature Here
  6. It can't be a full scale conversion. by penpen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Australian Taxation Office is the so entrenched with microsoft products, I doubt that will ever look at moving away from these solutions.

    Perhaps the greatest entrenchment is something called the ATO innovation centre. This is where they collaborate at a high level with microsoft, on new products and solutions to what they're working on.

    I'm sure I would have heard about news as big as the ATO closing down their innovation centre so one can assume, they aren't even close to getting rid of ms, but are still deep in bed taking a pounding in the wallet.

    Other reasons I'm doubtful of the move are custom pieces of software that have been made for the ATO would have to be ported.
    I know for a fact that the company I work has over the years written a large number of pieces of software for the ATO using, vb and .net. Now simply the cost of moving over these third party software pieces would make any more away from microsoft extremely difficult.

  7. ATO by digitaltraveller · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In Australia you can file your taxes electronically using a WIN32 application that is terribly written. It consistently estimates your refund/liability incorrectly even with the simplest tax information. For example, a salary-only return with no deductions, no adjustments, etc.

    Putting their support for monopolists aside, government incompetence is so 90's. The concept of DETERMINISM needs to be explained to the ATO.

    If anything should be deterministic it's the tax code. The refund/liability amount should be perfect to the last penny, in all but the most complex returns.

    Even in that situation, the estimated return should be correct, but potentially there may be arguments about the content of the return itself, not the resulting amount.