[Linux-aus] [Osia-discuss] Tax office - Open Source policy

[Bret Busby]

On Thu, 27 Aug 2009, Simon Horman wrote:

> To: Stuart Guthrie <stuart at polonious.com.au>
> Cc: Open Source Industry Australia <osia-discuss at lists.osia.net.au>,
>     linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au
> Subject: Re: [Linux-aus] [Osia-discuss] Tax office - Open Source policy
> 
> On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 09:19:32PM +1000, Stuart Guthrie wrote:
>> Hi Ron
>>
>> Thanks for including the list on this, I think there is a better response than this one on it's way from the committee but this is just my two cents.
>>
>> Obviously it would be better for the ATO to use an open and published standard such as ODF (Open Document Format). There are many products that support this standard and it can be read and written on all major operating systems including Linux, OSX, OpenSolaris and Windows.
>>
>> Any customer needing access to read/write with the tax office can download at least one implementation of this standard for free from http://www.openoffice.org.
>>
>

I am wondering what is wrong with simply using MS Word 97 document 
format (.doc), without the malicious inclusion of macro's.

Most of the free word processors (AbiWord, Open Office, etc) readily 
import and export that document format, and, are available on multiple 
OS platforms, including MS Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and others.

--
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
  you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
   Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
   "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
   A Trilogy In Four Parts",
   written by Douglas Adams,
   published by Pan Books, 1992

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