The South African State IT Agency’s (SITA) Free and Open Source Software Programme Office (FPO) will host the second annual chief information officers (CIO) workshop on February 24.

The head of South Africa’s government open source working group, the chief technical officer of the State IT Agency (Sita) and The Shuttleworth Foundation, have laid a complaint with the Human Rights Commission (HRC) against the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) for excluding non-Internet Explorer users from it website.

The State IT Agency (SITA) is transferring its entire technology infrastructure to free, open source and open standards software (FOSS).

One of the key proponents of open source software within the South African government, the department of science and technology is joining in this year’s Software Freedom Day celebrations with a dedicated programme on OSS during its Insite show this week.

Late last month the First International ODF Users Workshop was held in Berlin. The event was attended by officials representing 20 governments from around the world. South Africa was represented by Aslam Raffee, the chief information officer at the department of science and technology.

German Development Organization InWEnt is partnering with FOSSFA (The Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa" ) on a new training and networking programme called "ict@innovation". Both partners signed an according Letter of Intent at the third African Conference on FOSS and the Digital Commons – Idlelo 3.

The New Zealand State Services Commission's (SSC) championing of open-source software in government helped its ICT (Information and Communications Technology) branch pick up an award in the government category of the inaugural New Zealand Open Source Awards, held in Wellington this month.

The Free Knowledge, Free Technology Conference (FKFT) is the first international event which will centre on the production and sharing of educational and training materials in the field of Free Software and Open Standards.

The Hungarian government has announced that it will be modifying procurement rules to allow open source to be used in public sector organisations. Previously, procurement rules had apparently named vendors such as Microsoft and Novell.