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> is that similar in Australia or is this app primarily driven by the government itself? I'm an Australian - and from my perspective the answer is "no". They

> is that similar in Australia or is this app primarily driven by the government itself? I'm an Australian - and from my perspective the answer is "no". They are doing the best job they can. In this case, the mandarins running the place (we have a West Minister system) look to be very unfamiliar with open sources development practices, and the positive impacts it has software reliability, productivity and the trust you can place in it. But to answer your question - no one selfishly perusing personal agendas or trying to enrich themselves here. That's not a good excuse for getting it wrong as they have done in this instance of course. But it is just a question of them coming to grips with something they've never bothered to familiarise themselves with. Up until now when they needed a large IT project done, they've just hired IBM at an exorbitant fee. Amazingly, failures brought on by this waterfall style approach of the order of $4B in one instance (and there are many), the collapse of the census and a few weeks ago the collapse of a keystone of their infrastructure never made them consider alternatives. The fact that most successful companies on the planet, the FANG's, main infrastructure is based on open source and it's development model seems to have pass them by unnoticed. So this alternative style of IT development being shoved down their throats is a huge bridge for them to cross. Here's hoping they make it to the other side :D

angry_octet 7y ago
I would have to disagree that this is not driven by the government. This approach -- which has significant privacy defects -- is very much driven by a desire to have centralised control. It is quite possible them to think that they are the best people to have this data, and that they will manage it best, despite evidence to the contrary. You have to understand that none of the senior officials have any desire but to please the politicans, and they are all extremely risk averse. They have a long history of covering up mistakes, breaches of the ministerial code of conduct and their own maladministration, so citizen privacy isn't even on their list of concerns.

angry_octet 7y ago

I would have to disagree that this is not driven by the government. This approach -- which has significant privacy defects -- is very much driven by a desire to have centralised control. It is quite possible them to think that they are the best people to have this data, and that they will manage it best, despite evidence to the contrary. You have to understand that none of the senior officials have any desire but to please the politicans, and they are all extremely risk averse. They have a long history of covering up mistakes, breaches of the ministerial code of conduct and their own maladministration, so citizen privacy isn't even on their list of concerns.