State IT Agency to host FOSS vendor day

The SA State IT Agency’s Free and Open Source Programme Office (FPO) is to host a workshop this coming Friday in which free and open source software (FOSS) vendors will have a chance to demonstrate their products to government officials. The day-long workshop will include representatives from companies that were selected, in a 2005 tender process, as government-approved open source vendors.



More than three years on from the awarding of the tender some of the organisations selected either no longer exist or have closed down their open source programmes.

The FOSS Vendor Day will take place on Friday May 22 at Sita’s Centurion Auditorium.

Sita’s FOSS programme says that the workshop will give vendors an opportunity to “demonstrate solutions” that could be deployed by government. “There will be hands-on sessions where vendors will supply plans, architects and matrices, and products for use.”

The workshop is expected to help the FOSS Programme Office “identify gaps and assess what is available in the market in order to bridge them. It will assess what is available in the market and make a thorough analysis and give a way forward. The FPO will also acquire solutions and possible ways to build the FOSS ecosystem.”

Topics to be discussed at the workshop include open source migration risks, open source success stories from abroad, open standards, measuring FOSS implementation in government and Foss procurement.

Source: Tectonic