With an urge to increase the usage of free and open source software, the Icelandic government has recently launched a one year project that will build a foundation using free and open source software in its institutions. “The goal of the project is not to migrate public institutions to free and open source software in one single year but to lay a solid foundation for such a migration which institutions can base their migration plans on”, reports Tryggvi Björgvinsson, the project leader.
The project will put up a common infrastructure for migrations, he explains. Here the public administrations will document and estimate the maturity of free and open source alternatives to proprietary software. “This will foster collaboration between public institutions, IT service providers and the free and open source community in Iceland.”
“Public institutions have slowly been migrating to free software over the last four years. This school year, 2011-2012, two new secondary schools moved their systems entirely to free and open source software, bringing the count to five out of 32 schools.”
“The country-wide migration project will build upon their experience and hopefully pave the way for other institutions to follow.”
