So much seems to be going wrong with government supply chain processes (time, corruption, only choosing from what is offered, funds flowing out of the country, vendor lock-in) that it is probably time to seriously reconsider South African government’s approved policy on open source software.
Open source software is in use in many places in government for document management, video conferencing, large file transfer, e-mail, office suites, GIS, etc and there has not been any hints of corruption surrounding their use as there was no financial purchasing. In some cases it is supported by internal staff and in others smaller value contracts are put in place for support but without vendor lock-in as anyone can skill up and support it.
Problem is we don’t hear about it as there is no large marketing budget, there is no lobbying by large international corporates, and there is no high value tender awarded or disputed. There is also no crisis with an expiring license and having government shut out from using the system.
There is a District Municipality in South Africa that already runs their entire operations using open source software including no use of Microsoft Office. So why is it that taxpayers are not demanding the same from the rest of government who is spending billions of Rands per annum on software which is usually in foreign currencies?
See
https://mybroadband.co.za/news/government/328243-south-africas-big-government-it-mess.html and more about open source at https://gadgeteer.co.za/opensourcesoftware
#sagov #opensource
#^South Africa’s big government IT mess
Parliament has been critical of SITA recently due to its failure to fix government IT departments.