The second of five Open Everything events to be held in different parts of the world was held on Friday in Cape Town. The half-day conversation, which brought together a diverse group of participants, was facilitated by Helen King, Mark Surman & Philipp Schmidt.
Over 10 different Speedgeek presentations were made on a range of initiatives that espouse the spirit of openness. Some of the initiatives are directly related to the cause of open education: Rip, Mix and Learn Education at the University of the Western Cape, Siyavula/the Free Highschool Science Textbooks, and the Freedom Toasters.
Mr. Aslam Raffee, CIO, from the Department of Science and Technology, was present at the event, and shared with participants the process and challenges of adopting Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) by South Africa Government. In his presentation Aslam highlighted the ensuing policy provisions, which comprise the cornerstone of the initiative:
The government will implement FOSS unless proprietary software is demonstrated to be significantly superior.
Whenever FOSS is not implemented, then reasons must be provided to justify the implementation of proprietary software
The government will ensure all government content and content developed using government resource is made open content, unless the issue of proprietary licensing or confidentiality can be adequately justified
Aslam in the end emphasized the importance of civil society in monitoring and lobbying the implementation of the FOSS policy. He also pinpointed the lack of such comprehensive open source initiative in the rest of Africa.
Efforts are underway to document details of the conversation on the the Cape Town Open Everything Wiki.
