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.

North-by-South is proud to announce the first in a series of articles that will document the Latin American free software movement in detail. We recently spoke with Marcos Mazoni, who made news last month when he was appointed as the new head of the federal Technical Committee for the Implementation of Free Software in Brazil. The interview mostly focuses on the efforts to migrate Brazil’s state-owned IT firms to open source software, as this is what Mr Mazoni has been working on for the past decade or so. Our next article in the series will look at Brazil’s Digital Inclusion program in greater detail. To read the interview with Mr Mazoni:

• Read the interview with Marcos Mazoni in English
• Read the interview with Marcos Mazoni in Portuguese