We have reported extensively about the Venezuelan government’s support of open formats in the area of information technology. But it was only recently that the National Center of IT (CNTI) made it mandatory for the public sector to use open formats (ODT, ODS, ODP, ODG). This requirement was published in Venezuela’s Official Journal, giving it more formality since it was distributed to the public and made official. The articles describing the new Technical Standards for the government can be read in Spanish - here and here.

In a special note for North by South News, CNTI describes the process to create such standards (also available to NXS readers in Spanish) and the extent to which they ensured that what was going to become mandatory was a consensus that came from the base or, as they described it, Venezuela’s “Technological Ecosystem (companies, cooperatives, academics, Free Software communities, officials, users etc)”. CNTI also gave us an update about how the migration process is going in the country.

NXS is honored to be in contact with Venezuela and happy to be following and reporting on the progress inside of Latin America governments who are adopting free software, open standards and concepts of open knowledge. NXS is not only committed to making information about this progress available to the English-speaking world but our Developers Network includes dedicated free software activists who are taking part in this regional technological revolution. Every time a milestone like this one is met, the evidence of free software as a better way becomes proven out in real world scenarios.