The letter was issued on 20 December 2007 by Prof Richard Levin as Acting DG of DPSA. It referred the Cabinet endorsement of the FOSS Implementation Plan and Strategy (it was attached) and referred to one of the actions being the revision of the MIOS. It further stated that the MIOS v1.4 was signed by the Minister for PSA which included the stipulation that the Open Document Format (ODF) becomes the standard for all government documents. The letter called on all departments to take action towards implementing this standard.
It further gave timelines for the implementation up to March 2009.
The scanned copy attached here is a copy received by the DG of the Western Cape Government on 4 January 2008 which was in turn actioned to their IT unit. This attachment shows evidence of the letter being distributed out to departments around the country.
