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"The Icelandic government has recently launched a one year project that will build a foundation for using free and open source software in its institutions.\u00A0According to reports from\u00A0project leader\u00A0Tryggvi Bj\u00F6rgvinsson,\u00A0the three biggest public institutions in Iceland: all of the ministries, the city of Reykjavik and the National Hospital, are all lined up for the migration.\r\n\r\nBut before fully embracing open source, the team is estimating the\u00A0maturity of these free and open source alternatives to proprietary software.\u00A0&amp;quot;This will foster collaboration between public institutions, IT service providers and the free and open source community in Iceland,&amp;quot; Bj\u00F6rgvinsson\u00A0says.\r\n\r\nAccording to the team, &amp;quot;public institutions in Iceland 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.&amp;quot;\r\n\r\nFrom\u00A0Bj\u00F6rgvinsson:\r\nWe are also making sure that in our public schools, the national curricula does not restrict the use of free and open source software.\u00A0The country-wide migration project will build upon their experience and hopefully pave the way for other institutions to follow.\r\nFrom the Prime Minister's Office:\r\nThe government of Iceland has agreed on a policy regarding free and open-source software. The policy states, among other things, that when purchasing new software, free and open-source software and proprietary software are to be considered on an equal footing, with the object of always selecting the most favourable purchase.\r\n\r\n\r\nFollowing the Icelandic financial crisis, this move to embrace open source software could cut costs and pave the way for other governments to embrace it. Conversely, if this fails it could halt other attempts to bring open source into public institutions. This move has the potential to leave a very big impact on the open source community.\r\n\r\nFor more, check out the official policy for\u00A0Iceland's open source project.\r\n\r\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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