It was constituted as Science Council by an Act of Parliament and mandated to foster industrial and scientific development, either by itself, or in partnership with public and private sectors to contribute to the improvement of the quality of life of the people of South Africa.

Dr Sibusiso Sibisi CEO of CSIR said this development indicated an outstanding commitment to use science and technology to help empower South Africans and to contribute to broad government's endeavors aimed at economic development.

The center is one of the busy entities within CSIR funded through the organisation's parliamentary grant and by the Department of Science and Technology.

'Open Source Technologies have found wide acceptance and support as a range of computer software that has been deliberately and explicitly licenced in such a way that users can modify and redistribute the software,' CSIR said in a statement.

The importance of the Open Source Software within South African context is underscored by its inclusion as a component in almost every major ICT strategic proposal.

The Open Centre has adopted as its theme the concept of 'Meraka' a SeSotho term meaning common grazing land.

'Another factor of the Open Source software adoption is the push for a turnaround in the regional ICT market from an importer of technology to a producer and exporter of technology,' said Dr Sibisi

'I expect this initiative to make a significant contribution to similar efforts on the continent and in the rest of the world,' he added.

Dr Sibisi added that the key success of the Open Source Centre would be the extent to which it becomes an integral part of the international and particularly African Open Source communities.

Source: BuaNews