Mailing the story:

The New Zealand State Services Commission's (SSC) championing of open-source software in government helped its ICT (Information and Communications Technology) branch pick up an award in the government category of the inaugural New Zealand Open Source Awards, held in Wellington this month. The SSC has developed and published guidelines to government agencies that are considering open source, says the deputy commissioner and head of the ICT branch, Laurence Millar. The guidelines were published on the e-government website in 2003 and then updated, he says.