[ale] Rant[ish]: government and states requiring proprietary software

[Jim Kinney]

On 09/17/2012 01:15 PM, mike at trausch.us wrote:
> On 09/14/2012 01:23 PM, Jim Kinney wrote:
>> puzzled.
>>
>> All of my tax forms are done using downloaded fill-in PDF docs and
>> Linux native pdf reader. For a few years I had to use Adobe reader
>> until the Linux native one has better support for fill-in forms.
>>
>> None of the forms I've used have required javascript from the pdf.
>> Please provide example form number for the curious.
> The 2011 GA 500 __REQUIRES__ JavaScript.  If you do not have it enabled,
> or are using a secure PDF reader program that doesn't include JavaScript
> support at all, then the following message appears:
Ah. So get the stupid Adobe reader. Problem Solved. Scribus, a FOSS tool 
has a wiki article about how to include Javascript in PDF forms. Or go 
yelp at evince for not getting javascript included yet.

http://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/How_to_enhance_your_PDF_forms_with_JavaScript

Yes, scripting is a security risk. So launch your scripting-allowed 
reader in a VM set up specifically for doing taxes.

 From a large-scale perspective, we are a L O N G way from an 
electronic-only society! Handwritten on paper may be slow, but it avoids 
the other "issues". The GA 500 form farmed out the process to a 
commercial bunch. Their javascript produces a bar-code formatted version 
of the data in the fields. So what is actually being process on the tax 
form is NOT the data you entered but the data interpreted by a 
proprietary process.

Yeah. Add that to my trust of voting methods in jawja.