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Australian Tax Office Adopts Open Source Software
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."
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?
By using an Anton Pilar act, SCO raided ATO offices demanding a AUD$904.32 (USD$699) licensing fee for each CPU.
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?
As opposed to what they were doing before: adopting it where inappropriate! :)
Seriously though, is it just me or does that wording imply that they've been inappropriately using Windows? Maybe it's good they can admit such a thing.
It was reported late last year that the ATO was originally considering Longhorn as its preferred SOE
What? How can they even consider an OS that won't be released for about 2 years?
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
Funnier still is that the author considers LUGS high profile.
I don't think there is any such thing as a 'high profile' *UG
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.
Their web site runs IIS.
another stupid TLA, meaning a PC running windows...
"If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes should fall like a house of cards. Checkmate." - Zapp Brannigan
I'm going to have to rethink this whole Open Source thing...
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
I am sorry - this does NOT mean you will get your Tax Return sooner.
I dont see why they dont do this government wide as China is attempting. The amount of money saved on licensing would hire a lot of staff for support and training. Thus the money previously paid for licensing would be directed into the local IT workforce, creating jobs, producing local IT experience and knowledge that can then boost the local industry instead of watching all our tax money go offshore...
In Soviet Russia the insensitive clod is YOU!
The article did not say they were going to switch from Microsoft to Linux. The gist of it is that they will no longer dismiss open-source solutions out of hand, but will at least give it some consideration.
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).
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Much as I'd love to see a Gov't move to OSS, I wouldn't be surprised if this turned out to be another bait'n'switch to get Microsoft to give 'em some discounts. What I really want to see is them roll out linux desktops. They might still (why any country in it's right mind would trust a foriegn company with a history of getting away with shady monopolitic practices is beyond me), but I'm not gonna hold my breath.
The comment about mid range stikes me though. XP's a resource hog, but older Windows are insecure as heck. Linux could find itself a nice nitch where people need a secure desktop OS with access to patchs but don't want to buy new hardware.
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The Australian Taxation Office is the so entrenched with microsoft products, I doubt that will ever look at moving away from these solutions.
.net. Now simply the cost of moving over these third party software pieces would make any more away from microsoft extremely difficult.
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
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.
I was amazed when they snuck in fax numbers to allow businesses to submit their BAS (Business Activity Statement - paperwork for the "New Tax System." Is submitted anywhere from Quarterly through to twice-per-fscking-week depending on size of the business).
Because they aren't publicised, here's some of the fax numbers that I've been able to find out:
+61-3-9937-9200
+61-3-9937-9400
+61-8-8228-4399
+61-8-8228-4297
Of course, now I can sit back and watch these fax machines get slashdotted. Not that they don't every day that a BAS/IAS is due anyway!
The non-Linux move comes as no surprise. It's no secret that the current hardware is great for Fragfests (Some of the best Quake players that I knew were ATO employees...)
As to Mozilla? Also no surprise. If their own webpage isn't 100% Mozilla friendly, who'd expect any advances in this field?
Linux Australia, the national Linux body, have been doing a lot more interesting work in the Government space.
Just what Australians need, GNU Taxes!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
All this means is the ATO has changed their policy to that non-Microsoft software *MAY* be used where appropriate. This does not mean they are ditching any existing software, just they will be more inclusive in future decision. Hardly newsworthy, I would say!
Similar to an Australian hospital group I once worked for, ATO is so entrenched in Microsoft it is unlikely anything will change in the immediate future. Such organisation have many Linux and open source haters within their IT departments, it is very hard for pro Linux and open source people to have any impact.
CIOs are only interested in the bottom line and this could just be the ATOs attempt at getting a better deal from Microsoft.
The comment is pretty misleading. The ATO had a SOE policy wich explicitly excluded non-Microsoft products. What they are doing now is ditching this part of the SOE policy. In other words, they will still be a Microsoft shop, but in the future, non-Microsoft products have, in theory, and equal footing to be accepted as SOE.
Don't get me wrong. It is a positive move, and hopefully, good will come out of it.
The very first paragraph states:
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
you people haven't a clue. You think linux = programmers not getting paid? idiot, there is nothing stopping the ATO employing programmers to work on OSS for them, if anything it means MORE free money for I.T jobs in general and not sending money down a large over seas corp. hole. good work ATO i hope you can ween yourselfs off MS software altogether.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Having spent more than my fair share of time (though not as much as some!) working on ATO mid-range systems, I can confirm most of the technical aspects of the article.
.NET applications to web-enable existing mainframe applications; Others were designed to integrate across agencies via web-services; Others still do little more than send an email.
Yes, all ATO mid-range systems are developed on the Microsoft platform. Most are recently developed
And yes, the vast, vast majority of core business processing continues to take place on mainframes - tax processing, enforcement, GST, BAS. The data for these systems are all ultimately stored and processed on big iron.
As for the SOE, well, mid-range developers have (you guessed it) an all Microsoft SOE running W2K server (progressively rolling out W2K3), SQL Server 2000, IIS 5, etc, etc, etc. Business users run XP with the usual collection of Office and Outlook, plus a good old mainframe client to connect to those core systems.
Sure, the lip service paid to adopting open source might be encouraging, but I wouldn't hold my breath! The Change Program needs to make these announcements, but much of the technology solutions are already proposed and are only a rubber stamp away from approval.
Heck, speaking with first-hand experience, I can plainly state that some places didn't upgrade to Windows NT until Windows 2000 had come out. And have only recently gone to Windows 2000.
Of course, even with spending the next few years evaluating the unevaluable (an unreleased OS), that'd come up when they'd finally gotten to making a decision, which in turn means the evaluation would be thrown out, and restarted at point zero.