The Go Open Source project was initiated by the Shuttleworth Foundation in May 2004 and ran for two years, concluding in 2006. The campaign was designed to raise awareness surrounding the use of open source software and provide the public with a resource for information and assistance in adopting it.

The campaign developed a television series, marketing materials, events, open source software CDs and established the ‘Geek Freedom League’  to support the local open source community in South Africa. The television programme, called Go_Open was a 13-part series on television channel SABC 2 hosted by South African comedian John Vlismas and aimed to introduce open source to the South African public in a fun, informative and non-technical manner. The series is currently being syndicated in other African countries and was released under a Creative Commons license allowing for it to be used in other initiatives and freely distributed via the Internet and other sources.

The campaign also provided The Open CD, a disk carrying a compilation of open source software applications which was provided freely to the public. This project saw over 200 000 CDs being distributed to home users, companies and enthusiasts and went a long way to raising awareness surrounding the ease of use of effectiveness of open source applications. The Geek Freedom League was established to promote and organise a community of open source users and enthusiasts in South Africa which would be incentivised to assist the proliferation of open source in the region. To date the league has over 5000 registered users and continues to grow.

In 2005 the Go Open Source campaign turned its focus to the promotion of free and open source software in Government. The campaign contributed to the organisation of the Go Open Source conference that attracted major stakeholders from government departments. This led to a declaration on government’s open source policy including a strategy for Government’s adoption of open source. The momentum that the conference generated led to a series of cluster-based working groups which will continue to champion free and open source software and open content for the future.

Overall the campaign was successful and inspired many South Africans to choose open source software for their daily computing needs. The contribution the campaign made to the adoption of open source by the South African government is seen as a big win in itself.