Iceland’s public sector increasing use of free and open source

All public sector organisations in Iceland are increasing their use of free and open source software, Joinup reports, and the country’s government recently launched a one year migration project for all of its departments. Project leader Tryggvi Björgvinsson states: “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.”

However, Iceland’s public sector bodies have been steadily moving towards free and open source software over the past few years,including the three biggest public institutions in Iceland, all of the ministries, the city of Reykjavik and the National Hospital.

In the education sector, the majority of the secondary schools are already running Moodle, an open source course management system, whilst other public bodies such as the newly founded Media commission also run entirely on free and open source software.

Moreover, Iceland’s government has had a free and open source policy since 2007, which emphasises that there should be a level playing field for free and open source software vis-a-vis its proprietary equivalent. The Icelandic government’s free and open source policy is also available in English as a PDF.