Hi, In my country of origin, the Tax Authorities use the slogan: "We can't make it more fun, but we can make it easier." I was glad to find that the URA is also doing its best to lower the administrative burden of the tax-payers with the new URA portal.
While using the portal we have come to a few hurdles that we are not really sure how to pass. In our company we use Linux on all our desktops, and we have also been using OpenOffice to much of our satisfaction. We just do not own a Microsoft Office license as we have never needed it. As you might know, these licenses are quite expensive. I think you can imagine our issues. First of all the site does not work in Firefox. It is quite a minor issue, mostly to do with the date-picker. That should not be very difficult to fix, and we might be able to help you with this, as building websites is our bread and butter. (The datepicker itself works perfectly fine in firefox, we just would need to change some code on the portal pages.) Our second issue is probably a bit more complicated. The spreadsheets that we need to download and fill in contain Visual Basic code which openoffice can only interpret partially. Besides that, there is a minor issue with the way the numeric fields are locked. (it checks for a length, not for if there is a valid number filled in.) The last issue is quite easy to remove. We like our Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). It does all it needs to do for us, it is very easy to maintain, we never have virusses or other problems. That is also why we actively try to encourage other people also to make the switch to FOSS, for example by being very active members of he Linux User Group (http://linux.or.ug ). Especially in an economy like Ugandan's where a lot of people are trying but cash is a bit low, using Free software makes a lot of sense. Not just for us, but for a lot of other companies and individuals, too. So, my worries are not just for our small company, but mostly for all the people we had just convinced to switch to OpenOffice or Linux because they got tired of downloading their Microsoft Updates every month, that do not want to spend money on a Virus scanner subscription every year and STILL be infected by a rouge memory stick. I understand your first aim was to reach as many people as possible. And most people are using Windows, still. So, OpenOffice support for your users would be very much appreciated. If we can help with that in any way, within our capabilities we could see if we could help you with that. And I am also convinsed there are several other very capable companies specialised in FOSS software and development that can assist. Looking forward to your positive reply. -- rgds, Reinier Battenberg Director Mountbatten Ltd. +256 782 801 749 www.mountbatten.net _______________________________________________ LUG mailing list [email protected] http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/lug %LUG is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. ---------------------------------------
