The State IT Agency (SITA) is committed to transforming open source software from a niche product into a mainstream tool for delivering government services, SITA CIO Mojalefa Moseki said yesterday.
He was talking at an open source software (OSS) workshop hosted at SITA, the second such meeting. The workshop was held under the auspices of the OSS Workgroup and incorporated representatives of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), SITA, the Centre for Public Service Innovation and the Department of Public Service and Administration.
Participants resolved to pick up the pace of testing and implementation of OSS in government structures, and set tight deadlines for tasks such as establishing an OSS unit within SITA and the development of a framework for assessing and recording the results of OSS use in government.
Delegates agreed that it is important to promote the use of OSS in government for the savings as well as the stability and capabilities it offers.
"It is important to now start talking about action on OSS. Let us really move on this issue this year," CSIR chairman Sibusiso Sibisi told the workshop. Sibisi said the CSIR is committing resources to open source, including the establishment of an open source resource centre planned for the coming months.
The workgroup also set 31 January as the date for the Government IT Officers` Council (Gitoc) to adopt the policy framework document produced by the workgroup. The framework advocates that government should "explicitly" support the adoption of open source in government as part of its e-government strategy.
Arno Webb, chairman of the Gitoc OSS workgroup, said the document is undergoing final changes as recommended by Gitoc and would be signed off by the end of the month.
However, Moseki said that while it is important to debate the merits of OSS at Gitoc level, in reality government is already heavily invested in open source software. He cited as an example the 40 000-strong government network, known as OpeNet, which uses primarily open source software. This includes extensive use of Apache and FreeBSD for Web server applications as well as Exim for e-mail transport functions. "Government is already an open source zone," he said.
Bulelani Didiza, IT specialist at SITA, said government had already saved significant amounts of money by using open source software. He added that a message should to be sent to Gitoc to "make OSS a mandatory option when evaluating solutions for government implementations".
Related stories:
Govt advisory body recommends open source
Share