Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
He told iTWire: "There is a Linux version of the Common Signing Interface (CSI), but it is extremely difficult to find. Given that most Linux users are more competent than most Windows users, why could not more be done to involve the Linux Community in the testing and development of these solutions?
"Why not make the other tax office programs, like eTax, cross platform as well?
"The value to Australia of the uptake by business of the Linux operating system is substantial: In terms of balance of payments, the licence fees which would go across the globe to Microsoft, could remain in our own economy. This would have a positive effect on our balance of payments. Government could save money, and the general population could correspond with Government without the need for expensive proprietary Office programs.
"Transactions with the ATO need to be conducted under the most secure arrangements possible. Linux and MacOSX answer this need best of all. Why would businesses operate their financial and taxation affairs under Windows unless the ATO was forcing their choice of an insecure platform? By obstructing the uptake of Linux by business the ATO are complicit in
sabotaging the security of Australian businesses, and of putting the interests of a foreign company ahead of the national interest."
I though the tax office should be given a chance to provide some perspective and hence I wrote to them, saying in part:
"I'm trying to find out what happened to the Linux client for the ECI; a client was put online in November 2005 and then withdrawn after a while.
"At that time, a spokesman for the ATO said that the results of the trial would be evaluated and a decision taken on whether or not to release the client for general download. Nothing has been heard since."
In reply, the tax office sent me a single-line reply which it said could be attributed to a Tax Office spokesperson.
It said: "Other than for packaged software, Linux does not currently play a role in our systems development architecture."
Obfuscatory? Sure, but the tax office is probably well aware that Linux users like Greig are the exception. It can dole out this kind of gobbledy-gook and they will quietly accept it.
Maybe, just maybe, a sufficient number of Linux users have to use the means available within a democracy to get something that should, by logic, be a right, not a privilege. A group with much less education knew how to get things set right.
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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