By Bongani Mlangeni

Pretoria - South Africa needs to achieve true transformation that will see all sectors of society not only being passive recipients of technologies developed elsewhere, but participating in all aspects of innovation.

Director-General in the Department of Science and Technology Phil Mjwara said this in Pretoria on Saturday, 16 September, commemorating Open Source Software Freedom Day.

Software freedom day is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). It is aimed at educating the public about the benefits of using high quality software.

The FOSS is free and users unlike other software can freely copy and distribute it

"In South Africa, as is in many developing countries, there is a lack of information technology infrastructure and connectivity," said Mjwara, adding there were also low levels of literacy in this regard and a lack of awareness of these resources.

Mjwara added the department would migrate to open source software unless proprietary software was demonstrated to be significantly superior.

The vision, he said, was that all new software developed for or by the department would be based on open standards adherent to FOSS principles and licensed using a FOSS licence where possible.

"We promote FOSS not only because we want to use high quality software and the latest technology but because FOSS is an excellent platform for scientific computing.

"It gives scientists access the tools they require to perform their work no matter what area they decide to specialise in," said Mjwara.

Source: BuaNews