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."

Comments

Taxes windows only?

[no-one-important]

I was hoping that was a tax on windows... oh well.

Re:Taxes windows only?

[bmgoau]

I know im going to get modded as a Troll for this *sigh*

But seriously, why does anyone care, im for cross platform software as much as anyone. And I can see the relevance of this issue if we were dealing with a common day usage piece of software, but we are talking about a tax system that gets used once a year.

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.

Im sure with some more time in development the system could be written or ported to other operating systems, but I ask is this really necessary?

In Australia you can easily lodge you tax information on paper in about the same amount of time. And if you wish to use e-tax then it is a matter of dropping into your relative's house for a use of their windows based machine.

I know all of this seems a long winded excuse for not having cross platform support, but for a little used program that because of this choice already supports most of the population is such cross platform support a necessity or are we protecting for comfort.

I hardly think that more tax payers money needs to be spent employing people to port the program, and please don't scream community development because I defiantly wouldn't like my tax information to be lodged using a program ported by the community, no matter the quality. I'm sure that almost 100% of people wishing to use e-tax could find some access to a Windows platform once a year.

What is done, is done. It's not the optimal approach and the point of this post is to seek a better environment for cross platform users, but I simply believe that program aesthetics aside, what we have is all we need; anything more is what we want.

Re:Taxes windows only?

[Trejkaz]

Of course, they wouldn't need to port the program if they made it truly web-based in the first place.

Re:Taxes windows only?

[Gyarados]

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.

Re:Taxes windows only?

[NotZed]

It's important because it forces an extra fixed cost (a 'tax' if you will) to everyone who might want to access it.

The driving factor of using an online tax system is that it saves the cost of having to go through an accountant and/or the time required to post a physical letter (let alone actually pick up the tax forms from somewhere, which seems to change every year).

This route is closed to those not already using a platform based on a convicted illegal monopoly (well, in other places, Australia seems to have no such laws, or refuses to enforce them).

Re:Taxes windows only?

[jonored]

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.

Re:Taxes windows only?

[anthony_dipierro]

If it's truly web-based, then yes, it should work with Lynx.

Re:Taxes windows only?

[iTristan]

And as I recall, the Canadian govt apps also had its Windows bias at first. Ontario had a similar issue when I used their provincial business site. Then, interestingly enough, they were all head-slapped by some monitoring agency for being "discriminatory" against non-Windows users. Of course, being considered discriminatory is a huge deal in Canada, so everyone quickly jumped in line and fixed up their apps. And you know what? They work really well now. Who'd have thought? Democracy working? Crazy. Wait! There's a pig flying!!!!

Re:Taxes windows only?

[rcamera]

i'm still waiting for wine to be available for windows... any idea if this is coming any time soon?

Re:Taxes windows only?

[shellbeach]

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.

Tax on Windows users

[Colonel Panic]

Perhaps this is a tax on Windows users. Linux & Mac users need not worry about paying it.

Re:Tax on Windows users

[Mattcelt]

Geez, you'd think that would be taxing enough!

Thank you foreign governments....

[ron_ivi]

for keeping the US economy strong. It's nice to know that when anyone pays a tax in Austrailia, they also pay a tax to Redmond to keep our economy here alive.

Re:Thank you foreign governments....

[Yonan]

You're assuming people are using copies of Winblows that they've bought ; ) I think it's nice to know that people in Redmond are working on creating good OSes that I .... borrow.

Re:Thank you foreign governments....

[mabinogi]

actually, it's Win32 application, that then submits the tax return over the internet.
It is _not_ a web interface....

And of course, it's also not the only way to submit taxes, you can still do it the pen and paper way, or see a tax consultant

Re:Thank you foreign governments....

[SlightOverdose]

Actually, retard, it's not.

Re:Thank you foreign governments....

[Donny Smith]

Actually they save money to themselves as they don't need to waste time fucking around with emulators.

Re:Thank you foreign governments....

[KiloByte]

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.

Re:Thank you foreign governments....

[menkhaura]

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.

Protest..

[William Robinson]

Just protest is not enough, I feel. The rights did not come for ladies, for handicapped access and many other until they moved to court.

This is not expected from federal agencies. Seriously.

This is not a new thing.

[bobinabottle]

e-tax has been windows only for years. I use a mac and have Virtual PC installed so it works fine. In fact, I think it's the only thing I use Virtual PC for.

Re:This is not a new thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is slashdot... nobody pays for software.

Erm... I wish:

[Cantide]

"Sorry, I can't pay my taxes, I run OS/2"

Re:Editors please check links

[flyingsquid]

The protest email is a 404. You would think the editors would actually check thier links. But no, they can't even do that.

Oh, quit complaining how bad the editors are! I have complete confidence they'll have this fixed by the time the article is reposted as a dupe.

Re:404

[Codester]

Nah, it's probably only compatible with internet explorer! ^_^

The protest

[dysprosia]

You can apparently read the first paragraph of the protest here:

Today I come to you with a sincere request, that should appeal to the self-confessed geeks, and to the socially aware. The Australia Gov't hosts a service known as e-tax to submit your tax return through the Internet, this service has been widely heralded as a success. However, this does not apply to everyone; the educated minority of the Internet world often choose to use alternative operating systems, such as Mac OS or Linux, this software makes claim that you must use an emulator, should you choose to use these OS's. If you know anything about software emulation, you know that it is a difficult task, and one that is preferably avoided. My request is as follows: send an email similar to the one in the furthur text, at the address given, and phone up to register your disgust at this clear favour to global monopolies.

Re:The protest

[Anonymous Coward]

The "educated minority"? Gee anyone who uses Windows is uneducated. Great. What a way to get your word out.

Perhaps you should take your "minority" and realize that the government is trying to do its best to serve the "majority". Make more sense to me, likely a better use of taxpayer money. Personally I use OS-9? Can you please support that too?

Re:The protest

[HD Webdev]

the educated minority of the Internet world often choose to use alternative operating systems,

"The sort of thing not to say when protesting 101"

Re:The protest

[LS]

"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.

Give us the source

[lasindi]

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.

Re:Give us the source

[Josh Triplett]

But surely you could see many programmers hiding little bugs within the program to make themselves tax free. Not everything must or can be open source. Government's might use open source to develop software for their use (which has been done extensivly across Australia) but no government in their right mind would release their software as open source. There are so many security risks involved.

No server programmer in their right mind would trust the client to do validation and use the data it supplies blindly. The server should be validating submitted forms and rejecting those that don't add up; then it doesn't matter what client people use. (For that matter, it's just a *form*; why not use plain HTML forms and work on every browser?) If the security of their tax system depends on their client-side validation, rest assured that there will be modified versions of the software floating around which conveniently omit a few things here and there, whether or not the source is available.

The government doesn't need to write a client for every possible OS, particularly ones that are (for the moment) used by a minority of users. They just need to provide all the information for anyone else to be able to. Releasing the source to their client is one way to do that; another would be a full specification of the protocol. If Australia has a FOIA equivalent, use it to demand the protocol specification.

I support open source as use it frequently, but if your program/OS isn't usable, then is it really any good?

"My toaster is broken, it can't cook pizza!". GNU/Linux isn't designed to run Windows programs. The fact that one particular program running on it can passably do so using emulation is an interesting novelty that benefits some people while transitioning away from the programs in question. It is a stopgap, not a good long-term solution.

Re:Give us the source

[dancallaghan]

But surely you could see many programmers hiding little bugs within the program to make themselves tax free.

What? How? Everyone's tax returns are still processed by the ATO, irrespective of how they're compiled or submitted.

There are so many security risks involved.

There isn't reall. All their e-tax application does is run through a (rather long-winded) set of questions -- exactly the same as what you fill in on paper. It also provides a refund estimate, which it calculates based on the user's input. All of that could be coded by anyone using the paper tax-pack. The only other thing is the actual submission of the completed tax return, which seems to involve a few HTTP requests (enter some details to confirm your identity, get a submission code back, then submit your return using that code) -- and there's no reason that couldn't be open.

Re:Give us the source

[lasindi]

But surely you could see many programmers hiding little bugs within the program to make themselves tax free. Not everything must or can be open source.

I see your point, but if it's possible to cheat on your taxes by modifying the client software, then it's a pretty weak design. All such checks should be done on the server side. Even though the program is being distributed as a binary, if such loopholes exist, one can imagine some hex-editor-wielding taxpayer giving himself tax breaks. I see no reason why the whole design couldn't be made secure against this or why they couldn't provide a web-based system so that all you need is a browser.

Its is the open source community's resposibility to make it's OS compatible with these processes, not the company/government to make a version for your OS.

It's pretty difficult to make your OS run binaries from another platform if the other platform is closed source. The government shouldn't have to build a version of the program for every OS, but it should provide an interface compatible with some open standard/protocol, such as HTTP. This way, even if your platform didn't support the standard/protocol, it would be easy for someone to write a program that did.

Re:Give us the source

[QuantumG]

Yah!! Someone finally made the Free Software argument. Jesus we're slow these days. How can a government ever justify not releasing source code to the public? It's developed with public funds, therefore we own it. It's not made for profit, therefore there's no economic case for keeping it secret. For all we know there could be glaring bugs in this software (there was in the version that came out last year) and we'll be unable to fix them before submitting a tax return (meaning we'll be responsible for them). I recommended in another post that we use the Freedom Of Information Act to get the source code. I wonder what loophole there is in the law that would prevent us from doing that. I'm sure there is one. Of course, there's also the distinct possibility that the government didn't even get the source code to this software from the contractors they paid to make it.

Re:Give us the source

[mabinogi]

Because at the moment they provide guarantees and protection when you use the application to submit your taxes.

If they opened the source and allowed non official clients to connect to the service, they could no longer provide those guarantees or protections.

Also, I don't think too many people would be happy trusting their TFN to anything but software provided by the ATO.

Also, the etax software has _never_ been anything but windows only, I don't know why suddenly that's a big problem - or any more of a problem than it was in 1998.

Re:Give us the source

[novakreo]

For all we know there could be glaring bugs in this software (there was in the version that came out last year) and we'll be unable to fix them before submitting a tax return (meaning we'll be responsible for them).

Not actually true. There is a message at the start advising that as long as the user has supplied accurate info, they won't be held liable for any bugs in the e-Tax software.
Plus, you get to see a preview of your tax return (a filled-in form) which you can print and submit by post, if you don't have regular internet access, or are paranoid about electronic submission.

Re:Give us the source

[Nogami_Saeko]

Why don't they just use a web-browser system for doing taxes? There are many companies in Canada (and presumably the US) that use a browser-based package to allow people to file their returns.

I used one myself this year and it was painless and fast. No need for software for specific clients/OSes.

(didn't RTFA, apologies if I missed something) ;P

N.

Re:Give us the source

[Tumbleweed]

How can a government ever justify not releasing source code to the public? It's developed with public funds, therefore we own it.

Hmm ... I'll have to use that argument to get into Area 51 to take a ride in whatever cool aircraft they've got there. :)

"Don't point that weapon at me, young man; I'll have you know I pay your salary!"

Re:Give us the source

[mborland]

Your post was humorous, but your analogy (as with most analogies) doesn't shed light on this situation.

You aren't allowed access to many government facilities (esp. military) because of the extreme risk of harm to the greater populace, either through access to dangerous resources (a tank) or information (that could be harmful to millions).

Seeing the source code to an application that serves a tax-filing purpose makes sense because there is, or at least should be, no inherent risk in releasing it. Hacking the protocols would be pointless because the client program, if hacked, could not achieve more access to the service than someone could do using a homebrew client program.

Unless, of course, the government has released software on the client or server side which is inherently not secure, in which case they shouldn't be using this anyway (which is probably the case).

Re:Give us the source

[rich_r]

Look, to the right of the 'submit' button! It's a 'preview' button. it lets you see that your post will be an unreadable rant before you make it live.

I'm glad to live in Austria

[ammoQ]

The web based e-tax forms in my country work perfectly with Firefox on Linux. Our neighbours in Germany have a similar problem like the Aussies: The only available free (as in beer) program for their electronic tax forms is for Windows.

Actually, they typo'd

[jd]

They're really talking about sharp, pointy tacks, to remind users of the hell they are in.

Seems to work with Wine

[vinn]

Just for fun, I tried running it with the latest CVS of Wine. It installs fine (which is most of the problem with Wine these days.) It also launches fine. I wasn't able to get too far since I don't have an Australian tax ID number, but it was enough to launch the program. The help screens were written using the old MS help system and not the newer CHM, so you can use Wine's internal winhelp viewer to view it all. The controls seem to be pretty old, so I imagine the app runs fine with Wine.

I'd give their website a C- for usability. It seems way too technical for the average user to download the app in the first place. They have 4 links before the app download about patches, the description of which would be meaningless to most users and not obvious that they don't need them.

Re:Seems to work with Wine

[ColaMan]

I'd give their website a C- for usability. It seems way too technical for the average user to download the app in the first place. They have 4 links before the app download about patches, the description of which would be meaningless to most users and not obvious that they don't need them.


That may be the case , but over a million people a couple of years ago did their taxes with it. And they caught the ATO by surprise too - they had to do a lot of upgrades to the servers that handle the actual submissions. For a country that has about 8 million taxpayers, that's a *lot*. Even if the linux and mac taxpayers can't submit theirs :-)

404 Fixed

[Kinky Bass Junk]

Do you know how big an idiot I feel? I had problems with mod_rewrite and .htaccess at the worst possible time, but it's all fixed now :) Sorry again.

Re:404 Fixed

[xlr8ed]

Give it a few minutes, and it's not going to matter...

Give me a break

[nmb3000]

Come on.

They don't say that it will never become available to Linux and Mac users, simply that it's only out for Windows right now. Think about it for a minute. You only have time to get a single version of the client ready so which OS do you support first? You could release a Linux or Mac client and reach a fraction of your users or a Windows client and reach a large majority. Hmmm, let's see...

Besides, it doesn't sound like the emulation is that tough. Getting Wine working on Linux with simple applications certainly isn't difficult, this coming from a Linux "n00b". I don't know for certain, but I'd imagine that a tax return application would emulate easily enough.

Give them a break and stop whining. Not to tout Windows or bash Linux, but this is what happens when you've chosen to use an operating system with a very small consumer market share. Give it time.

Re:Give me a break

[Admiral Burrito]

You only have time to get a single version of the client ready so which OS do you support first?

All of them.

Cross-platform app development is only painful if you try to do it after the code has been targeted to a single platform. If you aim for portability right from the start, it isn't hard to do.

Re:Give me a break

[The Bubble]

You only have time to get a single version of the client ready so which OS do you support first?

I can see it now:

Online tax form application released; compatible only with 100% GNU/Linux based operating systems. Millions of citizens switch to Linux overnight to file taxes. BSD and Solaris form a coalition alledging that governments are monopolies. Microsoft takes the government to court, citing their patents for "an online system by which choice of operating system is passively forced."

In a related story, a record ten million new users join slashdot in an effort to "sh0 d3r 1337 sk1||z"

The future is bright indeed.

Re:Give me a break

[jvital]

You only have time to get a single version of the client ready so which OS do you support first?

All of them, and no, it isn't that hard to make it cross-platform; and yes, i have done it in the real world.

Here in Brazil we have IRPF, which is our e-tax app (written in Java swing), which runs and has been tested on Windows, Linux, Mac, even Solaris. So, if we can do, there's no reason to feel pitty for them.

Re:Give me a break

[despisethesun]

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.

That's not OK?

[nate nice]

Considering most people use Windows it makes sense to initially develop a program for Windows. It's a responsible use of tax money. How about the Linux community builds their own open source version? I'm sure it would easily be ported to OS X.

I mean, it would be more disturbing if they only had a version for Be OS, right?

Re:That's not OK?

[thorkummer]

Considering most people use Windows it makes sense to initially develop a program for Windows

Web sites, particularly government web sites, should be written to conform to open web standards, not to the idiosyncracies of particular any particular browser.

Re:That's not OK?

[EvilNTUser]

"Considering most people use Windows it makes sense to initially develop a program for Windows."

And what, exactly, would prevent the government from writing it for qt, for example? Not to mention that closed source software is never a responsible use of tax money.

Re:That's not OK?

[arcade]

Bullshit. It does not make sense to develop it for windows only. In Norway we've got a web based system which are pretty standard-compatible - and thus compatible with most browsers.

Heck, even our new "Bank-ID" system, a common system to identify yourself to all the banks, are standards-based. It requires a web browser with a Java-plugin, and that's it.

Develop for a standard first, and you won't have stupid restrictions later on. Developing for 'one platform first' is nothing but pure stupidity.

Sadly in mexico is the same history

[mxpengin]

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.

No Surprise

[Emporerx]

This is not actually a surprise to me. A lot of programs like this are made for windows, more than likely because of it's popularity(sad as it is, I know).

No one said that there will never be a linux or mac port but I wouldn't be betting on it in the near future either, although I don't know how linux is doing in Austrailia.

In the end it's all about popularity and until we can start converting friends and family over to the light side of the force(ie. linux) this is the sort of thing we will have to get used to (Or create our own ports).

Email Link

[xlr8ed]

* Email the ATO: http://www.ato.gov.au/corporate/content.asp?doc=/c ontent/PA_emailenquiry.html

* Letter Base (the one I used):

I am writing to express my concern over the implementation of "e-tax" in a very specific environment. Your choice to only permit those using Microsoft Windows, or certain emulation software, has placed a disgusting bias over the current market monopolies.

Open Source Software, such as Linux, is attributed with the characteristic of being FREE. To exploit a cliche - free as in speech, as well as free as in beer. By restricting access to only those who can afford Microsoft software, you have placed strains on myself and many others who find themselves liberated of the pressures of proprietry software. I implore you to consider the needs of a wide spectrum of PC users, instead of just those who can afford disgustingly overpriced software, without the need to run _furthur_ software that would likely fail in order to emulate. One possible solution to this is to open the source code up for conversion, and security, by the general population. Either that, or allow a standard protocol for tax returns, so as the general population can code their own software for use with tax returns.

Sincerely Frustrated,
David McKenzie
http://www.freemm.org/

Please note: The contents of this email and any subsequent replies are subject to publishing on mulitple platforms. Please inform me if you do not wish for your replies to be published.

Re:Does it really matter?

[general_re]

Oh, about not paying for taxes. The government can not force you to. They can throw you in jail, that is true, but it will cost government $30,000 per year to house you and feed you and pay for the guards and electricity. So if you don't pay taxes, and government sends you to jail, you win. Not only did you not pay taxes, but you forced them to spend $30,000 a year on you.

Except that yout friendly neighborhood IRS agent is just as aware of that calculation as you are. So most likely, they won't toss you in prison - they'll simply calculate your taxes and file for you, and then if you owe, they'll place a lien against your property, garnish your wages, or freeze your bank accounts in order to satisfy the debt. Or some combination of the three.

Of course, maybe you don't have any property to seize, bank accounts to raid, or wages to garnish, but in that case, you probably don't really owe much in the way of taxes to begin with, which would make your gesture essentially meaningless - it's posturing without really risking anything.

Linux, Mac, Solaris etc - Brazilian IR

[prdallan]

The Brazilian IR has (official) electronic tax returns programs for Windows AND other systems - Linux, Mac, Solaris etc, though for this second group the program is in Java. But better than nothing. Check the link (Disclaimar: Brazilian Portuguese!!!): http://www.receita.fazenda.gov.br/PessoaFisica/IRP F/2005/PGDJAVA/progIRPF2005multiplataforma.htm

It's easy to make code portable through QT......

[rolfwind]

The requirements: http://www.ato.gov.au/individuals/content.asp?doc= /content/32613.htm&page=3&H3 Why in the world do Governments want to be dependent on a foreign company's closed-source proprietary software is beyond me. I understand the need to get the most common platform but supercomplex software projects like Firefox can manage Mac/Linux/Windows (through QT???) - why can't a government? It will save them headaches in the long-run, if the code is written to be portable and platform independent. I get into the same mood when I see a website warning me it's only configured for IE or Active X. What is that BS?

Overreaction

[wbren]

As soon as this news item was posted on slashdot, people began bashing the Australian government for only supporting Windows (or writing "protest emails" like the submitter did). It was as if they were saying, "How dare they insult us Linux/Mac users? They are supporting evil Microsoft and alienating all us geeks." They made it Windows-only because they looked at the numbers, plain and simple. Windows is what the vast majority of taxpayers find easiest to use, because it's what they are used to. Most taxpayers use Windows. It is more popular than Linux/MacOS. Before I continue, I fully realize this comment will be modded into the depths of Hell.

The government's goal is not to convert people to Linux/Mac/OSS, or even to support that minority. Their goal is to cut down on massive amounts of paperwork and make it easier for most people to pay their taxes. The quickest and cheapest way to do that is by releasing a Windows program to pay taxes, duh. Someone even suggested taking this matter to the courts, comparing it to handicapped/women's rights.

"Your honor, I don't want to use Windows because it sucks and MS is evil, and I don't want to use the traditional paper system because I'm an elitist computer-literate citizen. Therefore, the government should be required to release a Mac/Linux version of the tax software." The response would be: Tough luck, use paper. You're lucky to have a computerized system to begin with.

Here are some things to remember:

• Just because eTax is Windows-only doesn't mean Australia is waging a war on Linux/Mac. It doesn't mean they are "supporting global monopolies". They are casting the widest net with the least cost, which unfortunately is something government rarely attempts.
• The government has better things to do than cater to everyone who uses an OS 90% of people don't use. Sorry, there are much more important things out there.
• They didn't rule out support for other operating systems in the future. They even suggested alternatives for now (Wine, etc).
• It's better to release a test version on one OS than maintain three test versions for three different operating systems. Give them time.

Re:Overreaction

[samtihen]

Ok. I'm not an OS Zealot. I currently use Windows XP on my personal computer.

I disagree with the idea of making something "Windows only" when it is in no way necessary. Equivalent applications could be written in Java, or (preferably) could be completely web based.

Both of these options would work for all users. Neither of these options would be more expensive.

What happened is very simple. The government hired a company that poorly engineered their software.

You are right, it probably doesn't matter to 90% of the people. But don't pretend it would have been harder or more expensive to do it right and have it work for 100% of people.

Explain to me why you would want a government to artificially limit the usability of something as important as Tax Software.

Re:Overreaction

[legirons]

"Most taxpayers use Windows. It is more popular than Linux/MacOS"

Most taxpayers aren't blind either, but governments are still legally-obliged to produce a braille-version of every single leaflet they print.

Same with minority languages. You can't discriminate against a group because they're in the minority.

For government communications, "most people" being able to use them isn't good enough.

Re:Overreaction

[Quiet_Desperation]

The government's goal is not to ... support that minority.

Uh, that's one of the *fundamental* purposes of modern representative democracy, which .au still has last I checked.

That other 10% pays their taxes, too, and as others have said, there's a multitude of readily available crossplatform methods. There's no excuse here.

This isn't new

[SlightOverdose]

I've submitted my last two tax returns using e-tax, and havn't had a problem with booting into windows.

Billions of dollars will change hands based on the data entered into e-tax. Extremely strict testing is needed, and supporting multiple platforms would make this all the more difficult.

Given that
a) Non-windows platforms make up only a few percent of the market; and
b) Most non-windows platforms can successfully emulate windows well enough to run e-tax (Although I wouldn't risk the potential for errors)
c) You are still able to use the standard paper based submission, or an accountant (And your probably much better off using an accountant).

I can understand the decision to only support windows.

are you serious?

[pintomp3]

you guys are outraged because they put out something that only works on windows? a lot of software companies put out software that is windows only. they are satisifed to hit the majority in one swoop. you can still file taxes using traditional forms. democracy doesn't mean that every single person gets their way. i understand your argument of "to do it right, they could have easily....". do you guys seriously expect the govt to always do things right? how about ever? i think there are much larger issues to check the govt on...

Re:It's easy to make code portable through QT.....

[natrius]

1. Firefox uses its own cross-platform toolkit, XUL, not Qt.
   
2. Using Qt would make them have to pay for licenses or GPL their program. Since it's not GPL'd already, I assume they have a good reason for doing so. That assumption is most likely wrong, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
   
3. Many developers aren't well versed in cross-platform development, so hiring developers based on that criteria would probably come at a premium. A Windows-only program, while not ideal, works for most, if not all people. Most people at least have a Windows machine lying around, can run the program in Wine, or have access to a Windows machine at a library. Is it really worth wasting tax money to cater to the small percentage of people that this slightly inconveniences?

Except the UK equivalent site *is* cross-platform

[rklrkl]

Unfortunately, all your points are invalid because the UK equivalent tax site is and always has been cross-platform (I used Linux and Mozilla or Firefox without a problem) and shows that, basically, the Aussie government were utterly incompetent when initially setting up the site.

If it's anything like what happened with the official UK lottery site (which banned almost all non-IE *and* non-Windows users from its online games until earlier this year), it'll take about 3 years before the Aussies bother to do another site redesign cycle and suddenly realise what a snafu they originally made.

Re:Oh for God sake

[NickFortune]

Why is it people these days go straight for petitioning their government instead of trying to help themselves?

How can a government be expected to get it right, if no one provides feedback?

Moreover, how can governments be expected to frame fair policies for e-gov applications in general, unless they get feedback from early pilot schemes from this. I wouldn't criticise anyone who wanted to explore technical solutions, but petitioning the government is a useful thing to do in addition to any technical initiative.

As for the specifics

1. Can be illegal, or may soon become so with current trends toward innovation stifling patents and anti reverse engineering laws
2. The code may be proprietary, and thus unavailable
3. Sure, if that's what you want. But hacking wine is probably not the best use for everyones' skillset.
4. And have to rewrite from scratch when the interface changes without notice - because you developed "unofficial" software. Of course, if the interface was published then I expect FLOSS clients would quickly become available. Sadly, though that's unlikely to happen unless we can spread awareness of the issues involved so the department concerned can understand the importance.

   Maybe we could start a letter writing campaign, that might help.

Of course, every one of these involves some kind of work and doesn't have the quick fix appeal of sending an email to a public servant who is just trying to do his job.

I wouldn't have thought that organising a letter writing campaign was necessarily the low work option, myself.

As for the public servant, handling emails is part pf his job.

Really, the only people with any motivation to complain about this are those at Microsoft who fear the erosion of their stranglehold on home computing.

Re:You could disagree

[man_ls]

Congratulations, you have successfully formed an analogy comparing users of Linux, to the physically disabled.

Not too far off in some respects, both literally, and certainly metaphorically, but there are laws in place in most Western nations mandating that Government services be available to people with physical handicaps, whereas there is no such requirement that they be accessible to Linux users.

Re:Except the UK equivalent site *is* cross-platfo

[Stauf]

Unfortunately, all your points are invalid because the UK equivalent tax site is and always has been cross-platform...

The Australian e-tax is a Windows application - it is not a website.

Why do some just not get it.

[Rhinobird]

Here are some things to remember:

• Just because eTax is for hearing-only doesn't mean Australia is waging a war on the deaf. It doesn't mean they are "supporting global monopolies". They are casting the widest net with the least cost, which unfortunately is something government rarely attempts.
• The government has better things to do than cater to everyone who doesn't have a sense that 90% of people have. Sorry, there are much more important things out there.
• They didn't rule out support for the deaf in the future. They even suggested alternatives for now (Relay services, etc).
• It's better to release a test version for the hearing than maintain three differnet versions for three different disabilities. Give them time.

My point being, they could/should have developed this as cross platform from the beginning. How hard is it to use open standards to create a cross platform web app? And for the last point, apparently it's been 4 years, how much time does it take to fix this sort of thing?

Mandatory in Holland

[top_down]

And of course, it's also not the only way to submit taxes, you can still do it the pen and paper way, or see a tax consultant

In Holland this is already no longer true for firms, even one person firms. Electronic submittal is mandatory.

It's web + pdf based though so it's mostly OS agnostic.

Japanese e-Tax Windows only

[okumura]

Japanese e-Tax http://www.e-tax.nta.go.jp/ which has been around for some time is also Windows only.

Cross-browser not as hard as you seem to think...

[hagbard5235]

SWT and RCP are good choices for a cross platform app.

As to cross-platform/cross browser web apps. I've generally found that if you stick to XHTML 1.0 Strict, CSS 1.0, and the DOM 1 core object model for Javascript the web apps I've written just work cross browser 90% of the time, and the 10% of problem is the non-standard behavior of IE that I was going to have a problem with whether I supported the other browsers or not. Or at least that's been my experience doing aggressively cross browser web dev. Oh, and also avoid using tables for layout of non-tabular things. Frankly, what makes cross-browser dev hard is IE. If you live clean (ie standards complaint) your pages will just work in KHTML/Mozilla/Opera out of the box, but about 50% of your time will be spent trying to produce something to work around IEs bugs.

Ways of Getting Government Depts to Change

[lkcl]

i gave one uk department a very polite form of hell, and, amazingly, it worked.

i basically explained to them that what they were doing was forcing people to fork out £500 for windows software plus another £500 for a computer capable of _running_ the windows software.

i then liked this into "discrimination", for which they could quite seriously get into trouble.

to their credit, they actually responded, sorted out the web site (and stopped publishing things in .doc format).