Government's open source policy goes beyond software as it includes open content.
This means all public financed research and digital content will, by default, be publicly available, says Nhlanhla Mabaso, one of the policy's authors.
Yesterday, government announced the formal adoption of its open source policy and strategy in a Cabinet statement. It says all new software developed for, or by government will be based on open standards and government will migrate current software to open source.
To implement this strategy, a project office will be set up comprising the Department of Science and Technology (DST), the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the State IT Agency (SITA).
Mabaso, who is manager for the Open Source Centre at the Meraka Institute, a CSIR division, says the open content part of the strategy relates to any digital goods, such as research, reports and documentaries that can be covered by the creative commons licence.
"Essentially, it means anything that has been created using public funds should be available to the public, unlike the present situation, which means such output is, by default, confidential and closed to public scrutiny."
Mabaso says the main exceptions to this would be the protection of an individual's privacy, state security and embargos - where information will be kept confidential until a prescribed date for public release.
Alan Levin, who consulted on the development of the strategy, says this policy reflects that government is willing to spend money on developing knowledge. It is good to know the knowledge will be used for the broader public benefit, he adds.
"This also means a number of laws may have to be amended, such as the Copyright Act, and other intellectual property-related laws," he says.
Last year, the SA Non-governmental Network (Sangonet) petitioned government to adopt the open source strategy. Mabaso says the petition's success implies there will be high expectations on all of SA to deliver on the strategy.
Migration plans
Mabaso says a number of government departments, such as the DST, the Presidential National Commission on Information Society for Africa's Development and SITA, have either fully embraced open source software, or have expressed their intention to do so.
"There is much excitement within government circles over the adoption of open source, because of the money that can be saved and the skills it will develop," he says.
While there are no official figures on what government spends on software licences, Mabaso estimates R48 billion annually is paid by the country as a whole, and that US software giant Microsoft alone collects more than R14 billion.
"The implementation of the strategy also means government departments will be better able to meet their obligations under the Public Finance Management Act, which is of great comfort to them," he says.
Heartened
There is positive industry reaction to government's open source strategy.
Viola Manuel, executive director of the Cape IT Initiative, says while government has long claimed to have an open source policy, it is good to see it finally move closer to becoming a reality.
"We have a vibrant and growing open source community in Cape Town and I'm sure many of our small open source software businesses will also be heartened by the news. We have all seen how a similar decision by the Brazilian government boosted their IT industry and I am confident this can also be achieved in SA," Manuel says.
Rob Lith, CEO of open source telecommunications supplier Connection Telecom, says: "Open source software will give ownership and control where it belongs and not at the whim of proprietary vendors."
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