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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>For those of you not on the <st1:place
w:st="on">Africa</st1:place> list, see the latest on SA’s Open Source
policy.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=navy face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>Gavin</span></font><font color=navy><span
lang=EN-US style='color:navy'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span lang=EN-US
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font
size=2 face=Tahoma><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>
africa-bounces@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:africa-bounces@lists.osgeo.org] <b><span
style='font-weight:bold'>On Behalf Of </span></b><st1:PersonName w:st="on">Kate
Lance</st1:PersonName><br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> 10 October 2007 05:28 PM<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> OSGEO-Africa<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Cc:</span></b> SDI-Africa<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> [OSGeo Africa] South
African government free and open sourcesoftware policy</span></font><span
lang=EN-US><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Can someone give me an indication of how the South
African government free and open source software policy affects (or will
affect) geospatial software procurement (and government supported
software-development)? <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>If the policy does (or eventually will) extend to geospatial
software, then how will those making procurement decisions judge
whether proprietary software is "significantly superior" or not (has
SITA prepared criteria/guidelines for such evaluation)?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><a
href="http://www.apc.org/english/rights/africa/?apc=he_1&x=5193463"
target="_blank">http://www.apc.org/english/rights/africa/?apc=he_1&x=5193463</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>South African government free and open source software
policy<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>October 6, 2007: The Chief Technology Officer of the South
African State Information Technology Agency (SITA), announced the launch of the
government-wide free and open source programme at the GovTech conference held
early September. While many welcomed the February announcement of government's
intention to adopt and promote open source software, the subsequent months saw
disillusionment within the open source community that very little had actually
happened. Sita's Daniel Mashao addressed these worries, describing what had
been happening behind the scenes and showing a systematic timetable of how this
process will indeed be implemented. He outlined the government's policy. The
five key points are: 1) Choose FOSS, 2) Migrate to FOSS, 3) Develop in FOSS, 4)
Use FOSS/open content licensing, and 5) Promote FOSS in <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">South Africa</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
Under the policy, when introducing new software, the SA government will
implement open source solutions unless a proprietary option is demonstrated to
be "significantly superior". In any instances where proprietary
software is implemented, reasons must be given to justify its use. Migration of
current systems is also planned. This will be done in a phased approach, beginning
with applications such as replacing MS Office with Open Office or KOffice and
replacing Internet Explorer with Firefox. This will in time lead up to the
operating system, replacing Windows with a Linux distribution. Migration to
Apache for the running of government websites has already occurred within a
number of departments. All new software developed for or by the government is
to be based on open standards and licensed under an open source licence where
possible. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>See: Policy on Free and Open Source Software use for South
African Government - approved by Cabinet on 22 February 2007, <a
href="http://www.oss.gov.za/FOSS_OC_POLICY_2006.pdf" target="_blank"><font
color=purple><span style='color:purple'>http://www.oss.gov.za/FOSS_OC_POLICY_2006.pdf</span></font></a> <a
href="http://www.oss.gov.za/" target="_blank"></a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
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