[wos] Australia:Tax to open up software policy

[Volker Grassmuck]

weil wir's gerade über die Machbarkeit von top-down Strategien zur 
Durchsetzung von freier Software hatten. Das australische Beispiel 
klingt auch eher nach einem Eiertanz. Interessant aber, dass, wie vor 
kurzem der Landesrechnungshof in Bayern, jetzt die Haushaltsprüfer 
auf freie Software drängen. /v


http://linuxtoday.com/it_management/

Tax to open up software policy
 James Riley
 FEBRUARY 24, 2004 

THE Australian Tax Office will adopt an open-source software policy for the 
first time, opening its Microsoft-dominated standard operating environment 
(SOE) to products such as Linux.

 ATO second commissioner Greg Farr said an internal review of open-source 
software - done in conjunction with the Gartner Group - concluded that the 
agency should evaluate and use open-source software where appropriate. 

Mr Farr told a Senate Estimates hearing last week that the review of the ATO's 
standard operating environment, carried out as part of the agency's 
substantial Change Program, would include specific consideration of 
open-source platforms that were not previously considered. 

The cost of the Change Program is estimated to be up to $800 million. 

Among the Gartner Group's key findings were that the ATO should develop an 
open-source policy and review procurement processes to better enable the 
evaluation, selection and sharing of open-source software. 

"What we have done is the first draft of a policy that recognises there is an 
increasing maturity of open-source software and we should be starting to 
fully analyse and make use of open-source software where it is appropriate to 
do so," Mr Farr said. 

"Gartner reported to us that there is some increasing maturity in some of 
these products and pointed to some places where we could perhaps start 
looking at it," he said. 

The ATO's present SOE restricts its systems to IBM mainframe technologies such 
as the z/OS operating system and Cool:Gen development environment for 
back-office functions, Microsoft's Windows for its mid-range server and 
desktop platform and .NET as its front-end development environment. 

Specifically "not recommended or supported" in the SOE are the GNU/Linux open 
source operating system and the Mozilla open-source browser. 

Mr Farr previously said the scope of the current Change Program was such that 
it provided a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make wholesale changes to 
the SOE. Under questioning from Opposition IT spokeswoman Kate Lundy on 
restrictions that the SOE presented to vendors bidding on Change Program 
tenders, Mr Farr said the ATO had urged that bidders "not be constrained" by 
the SOE. 

"We have been very clear on the business outcomes that we are seeking to 
achieve, the community experience that we are seeking to achieve and the 
sustainability," Mr Farr said. 

"We are not being constrained by our current SOE." 

"We are reviewing the IT support we need to achieve our business outcomes, 
without being constrained by the SOE as it was," he said. 

The Australian late last year reported that the ATO's standard operating 
environment was one of the most Microsoft-centric in the federal government, 
but the ATO has denied that. 

As a result of negotiations for various tenders connected with the Change 
Program, be a broad range of platforms would probably be selected, resulting 
in changes to the SOE, Mr Farr said. 

Asked by Senator Lundy whether the Change Program would reduce reliance on 
Microsoft, Mr Farr said it was likely it would result in a greater mix of 
products in the next SOE. 

"Most of our major applications run on mainframe. 

"We have a small number of applications - from memory, 11 - running in the 
mid-range environment, which is primarily Microsoft. That mix will probably 
change as a result of the Change Program. 

"It is absolutely true that, predominantly, in our mid-range environment we 
use Microsoft products. 

"As we move to greater emphasis on the mid-range environment, as we move to 
the Change Programs and different ways of doing things, there will be a 
greater mix of products." 

Mr Farr also used the Estimates process to deny that the ATO was considering 
using Longhorn, the still incomplete next version of Windows. 

The Australian reported that the ATO was considering Longhorn last December, 
based on ATO tender documents that revealed Longhorn was under consideration 
in June 2003. 



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