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Australia's 'e-tax' Windows Only
Kinky Bass Junk writes "As the need to submit tax returns is looming, notification emails are sent out to users of the tax office's services. This year, the Australia Tax Office (ATO) is using a web-based tax return system, as well as the traditional paper based systems. The e-tax website has all the details, and the requirements of the software stand out: 'e-tax is not compatible with Linux or Apple Macintosh computers. However, if you have suitable Windows Emulator software installed, you may be able to use e-tax.' Here is a protest email I have set up for those who disagree with this."
This is not expected from federal agencies. Seriously.
hilarious
Why doesn't the Australian government provide the source code to the public? I'm sure that there would be plenty of programmers willing to port the program to other platforms.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of this theorem that this sig is too small to contain.
Mexican Goverment has many web tools that must be used by tax payers , sadly this tools require M$ IExplorer to be used. The funny part is that many of this tools are written in java, and they work in part in other browsers/architechtures ... but I guess they never took the time/effort to check them to work correctly but in ie.
"We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." -- Linus
We have exactly the same problem in Poland. The social security "insurance" (read: tax) (ZUS) can be paid only through a Windows program, named Platnik.
The company who wrote Platnik (Prokom Software) has a set of agreement with Microsoft, and any legal attempts are met with a campaign of delaying any action or dismissing it, usually for procedural reasons.
You can read the details (in Polish) on the pages of Janosik, an attempt to reverse engineer Platnik and create an alternative.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
"self-confessed geeks"
Hmm, no sooner way to get your email deleted then starting it with this.
You might as well send an email to them saying your are a "self-confessed knit-o-holic", and that you want them to start sending out tax forms that can be embroidered.
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
If people don't take a stand towards such lazy developers, they will only continue to make single-platform software.
Considering there are plenty of viable solutions for cross-platform development available, I don't think there is any excuse for making single-platform software anymore.
The only possible exceptions would be for applications which require unusually fast processing, and for games.
I'm happy to say that in my country (Brazil), the software for tax returns is, since this year, written in Java, and it works like a charm on Linux, BSD or whatever operating system that has a JVM.
Stupidity is an equal opportunity striker.
Fellow slashdotter Bill Dog
I, for one, would very much prefer to have my taxes handled by a program that I can verify directly the security of, and which multiple other people have already looked at who are not connected with the project.
Security by secrecy of algorithm works poorly at best, while security by overwhelming mathematical complexity (as expressed by the time required to solve a given instance by the most effecient method known), and many proofreading eyes tends to work better.
But QT is not free
It is if your code is GPLed, which I don't think is unreasonable to expect from a government-produced app. And if you think it is, GTK is also cross-platform, and it's LGPLed, allowing for the app itself to use any license. There are (many) other problems that get in the way, of course, but this one's covered.
This poo is cold.
I understand the governments position in the issue, that by providing for windows they are providing for the larger portion of citizens with computers, whether we like it or not.
But you see, a government should aim to provide for all the people, not just a proportion of them, even if that proportion happens to be a majority. And - should a government decide to introduce an etax system - it should design a system that is as user-friendly and extensible as possible. Have you seen the crap that they use?? That's truly a system designed by the lowest bidder.
How hard would it have been to code in java? How obvious would that decision have been?? For that matter, why on earth wouldn't you have a server-side solution which any user can connect to from anywhere only needing a web-browser that supports HTTPS?
But no - our brilliant government decided to go with a solution that is limited to one OS only. Having a comment about using Windows emulator software just makes it worse, as it shows that they were aware of the fact that not everyone uses Windows, but decided to go with a Windows-only solution anyway.