[ILUG] Revenue on Line Service - Tax returns Only Windows or Mac supported

[Daniel Goldsmith]

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:05:06 +0100, Ciaran Mulloy <cmulloy at esatclear.ie> wrote:

<advocate class="devil">

> *       It locks the government into a particular vendor solution with unknown
> future cost implications therefore it guarantees higher costs both for the
> users, government (and tax payer).

Unfortunately for the petition - said Vendor is a major employer in
the state, provides much-needed jobs initiatives every time the
government needs one and pretty much constitutes one of the 'crown
jewels' of the governments deluded e-ireland image.

> *       It denies full access to certain computer users thus discriminating against
> some citizens on the basis of the OS they use.

In a state which cannot provide beds for sick people in hospitals,
pandering to the needs of a tiny number of computer users will never
be high on any agenda.

> *       The well publicised insecurity aspects of using proprietary OS may well slow
> down the take up of the service.

This is a good point, and specific examples from overseas should of
course be provided.

> *       It goes against the principles laid out by the EU by IDA (Interchange of
> Data between Administrations) an EU Commission body
> (http://europa.eu.int/ida/) supporting the use of open source and interchange
> of information between agencies in the EU.

So do many of the governments wonderful initiatives. Check out the
number of State websites which still use image-maps to access them,
with no alt-text provided. EU rules are only of concern to the
Government when they allow said gov't to dig deep into our pockets,
not vice-versa.

> *       It creates a national reliance on one or two US corporations which in itself
> carries many associated risks.

See above on vendor. 

> *       The government should be vendor and system neutral, I am sure there is
> something in Constitution about this.

Hmm, I'm not certain. There should be, obviously, but then again this
state did require women who chose to marry to surrender their jobs
until very recently, so I'd doubt it. Apart from th nonsensical
neutrality amendment of a few years back, there really isn't any
mention of neutrality in the Bunreacht.

> *       Building a national infrastructure on a proprietary basis is not a very
> clever thing to do. Witness the recent e-voting shambles and the embarrising
> climbdown not to mention the waste of taxpayers' money.

Repeat after me: Nil Illegitimi Carborandum. That's how the gov't
views the e-voting 'fiasco'. A crowd of ill-bred hippies, fecking
students and Brits took away the nice gerryman^w voting machines. As
to waste of taxpayers money - €550,000,000 was given to the gee-gees
and the doggies by this shower, what makes you think they are worried
about the €50m spent on investigating a brave new experiment in
Democracy?

> *       The ROS has been held up to be an early and ground breaking service in
> e-government, if other e-government services were to emulate the proprietary
> nature of this service then it would surely be a backward step.

A typist on the far end of the phone would be held up as as early and
ground breaking service in e-government! ROS is another bit of spin
spat out for the consumption of senior management in USian
corporations who need a further push than our ludicrously low
corporation tax rates.

> Maybe there are other arguments as well that people might be able to add.
> Indeed some of these points be put more cogently.

I think your points are absolutely valid, and extremely well
expressed. Doesn't mean it'll make the slightest bit of difference
though.