As the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) launched its 2009 campaign in Midrand this week, promising to bring SA a free and fair election, its Web site contradicted that claim by locking out open source users.
The IEC Web site currently only allows access to information via a Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) browser.
This is a serious oversight, says World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck. "The development of the IEC Web site has been very short-sighted as they are locking out a significant proportion of users. More and more people prefer Fire Fox because it is an efficient browser and, as a matter of course, the IEC should develop for all mainstream browsers.
"What they have been doing is forcing people into a technology choice which is not what you would expect from a national organisation that champions democracy," says Goldstuck.
He believes this means 20% of all Internet users will not be able to access www.iec.org.za.
Goldstuck believes the 'lock-out' has damaged the IEC's reputation in the technology sector. "I don't know whether the IEC cares about the open source community, but this certainly will affect the IEC's reputation there."
This issue was first raised by Aslam Raffee, chairman of government's OSS, on his blog Vulindlela (open the path), on 28 July.
Calling the move "digital apartheid", Raffee and the Shuttleworth Foundation joined forces to petition the IEC after pointing out that its Web presence was undemocratic, and received no satisfactory response. Despite acknowledging this, and with the petition in hand, the IEC launched its "free and fair" campaign to political parties and civil organisation at Gallagher Estate this week.
When a non-Microsoft browser user tries to access the IEC site, it reads: "Welcome to the IEC Web site! Our server detected that you are using a browser or operating system (for example, Netscape, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, etc) which is currently incompatible with our Web site. The current Web site is only compatible with Microsoft Internet Explorer V4 (and upward) on the Windows operating system. The Web site is under construction in order to rectify this. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause."
Click here to view full screen shot of the IEC web site.
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