:LinuxWorld.com.au: The Australian Taxation Office fails to deliver
Linux promise
LinuxWorld.com.au: The Australian Taxation Office fails to deliver
Linux promise Feb 15, 2001, 18 :23 UTC (4 Talkback[s]) (4444 reads) (Other stories by Rodney Gedda)
"The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has broken a clear promise to provide a Unix/Linux client for its new Electronic Commerce Interface (ECI - http://eci.ato.gov.au) software. The ECI client allows businesses to, among other things, lodge their Business Activity Statements (BAS) electronically. As a result, Unix/Linux groups are not only planning to lobby for a change to the decision but also seek to establish an open communication between people and government community organisation."
"The ECI software is a native client application that is used in conjunction with a standard Internet connection. When the first client for Windows was released in mid-2000, a promise was made to deliver a client for the Mac and Unix/Linux platforms. People who registered to lodge their BAS electronically received a CD with the Windows client software. The CD cover clearly stated that "development of the Apple Macintosh and Unix versions of the ECI are near completion but not available at this stage."
"In a complete turn-around, the ATO has now decided not to release a client for Unix/Linux. This decision was revealed in a fax sent by the ATO to Ron Skeoch of Muli Management (www.muli.com.au), who campaigned to at least have the specifications of the ECI made public."
