Spain’s Galicia region to switch to open source office suite?

A report on Joinup, the EU’s open source public sector news website, suggests that the government of Spain’s autonomous region of Galicia is considering a switch to open source office productivity tools. Galicia’s Agency for Technological Innovation and Agasol, the Galician Association for Free Software Enterprises, announced last week that they have started assessing the financial impact of such a migration, including its technical and organisational requirements. Agasol expects that the study will be ready this year.

Agasol also expects the government to make free and open source software a regional strategic initiative. Galicia is already promoting its use in schools. Last September, the government began the Abalar project to introduce free software to 43,000 pupils in the region’s schools. Free and open source software is also used for the Galicia’s free public ICT training courses. To date, some 21,000 Galician citizens have been schooled on desktop PCs running free and open source software. By using this kind of software for training, the project saved some €2.5 mn. in 2010 and 2011, according to Agasol.