South African Gov't Declared An Open Source Zone

fungai writes "The Business Day reports that the South African government has decided to adopt open source software and develop support programs with local research institutes and universities. The CIO of the State IT Agency says: 'The logic for open-source is so compelling that after a year of debates we decided to stop talking and declare government an open-source zone.'"

Comments

please MOD PARENT up !!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

insiteful....

communism is really basically the same as opensource and gpl is all about...

people never want to admit, but mankind needs to change so that gpl can be really a break thru...

to many greedy and moneydriven folks out there. money is the worlds number one problem.

Probably not the best country to have done this

[egg troll]

Although I support OpenSource software (OS X is amazing!) and I'm thrilled to see a government give it full backing, I'm less than thrilled to see that South Africa is the one doing this.

Speaking from a publicity standpoint, South Africa seems to have little credibility in the world these days. I'm sure you all remember their government denying that HIV causes AIDS in a desperate bid to avoid having to take responsibility for South Africa's terrible AIDS crisis. Additionally, South Africa unfortunately has a huge problem with rape. It seems that the country is barely able to govern itself, and is perilously sliding towards the chasm of anarchy.

Obviously none of this is the fault of Open Source software. However, I think that if/when South Africa collapses, this will taint whatever good using Open Source has done. All I can say is that I hope another, more stable country, does something similar so that when South Africa implodes, its failure doesn't taint the Open Source community.

Thank you and God bless!

Egg Troll

South African Citizen call to gov tech support.

[inteller]

Citizen: "so now how do I use your system to sign up for health benefits and other social benefit programs?" Gov: ....dead silence....then "RTFM! Geez, don't you people know anything?!?! You probably use AOL or something...ROTFLHRHARHARHRA...you are just a Windoze user and not one of us l334 open source people" Citizen: "Time to move"

Apart Height

[farfisa69]

I hope this does not go against any of their Apart Height rules. You know, Microsoft being taller than Linux.

I have good news...

[Anti-HanzoSan]

...and I have bad news.

First the bad news...

...the Governor of Illinois pardoned all the felons on Death Row.

Now the good news...

...HanzoSan has disappeared!

MS was willing to help!

[egg troll]

I seem to recall way back in the day of the Microsoft anti-trust trial that MS agreed to donate products to impoverished places & schools. Unfortunately many Open Source advocates pressured the courts into rejecting this offer. Because of this, Microsoft was unabel to help out those in need, such as America's poverty-stricken schools, and third world countries like South Africa.

Thus Open Source advocates created a self-fullfilling prophecy: Deny third-world countries like South Africa from having access to MS products and then express smug satisfaction when said countries are forced to use Open Source materials!

Re:It will be interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

What? you mean, they're going to create software?

sorry, that's not where the benefit of open source comes from. The benefit is in taking the work of others and using it for free.

Re:How will this affect apartheid?

[BigBadBri]

Never fear - Apartheid will live on in Israel.