Italian government to create open source competence center

The Italian Center of Competence for the Open Source initiative is a joint effort between Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, the Univeristy of Sannio, the University of Insubria and the University of Bolzano.

The center's primary goal is to provide user support to publicly funded institutions and small and medium enterprises that use open source software regularly. In addition, the center will promote the adoption of open source in Italy, a country that has been slow to embrace open source solutions, at least by European standards.

An October 2009 Constitutional Affairs Committee hearing reported that 35% of local governments utilize open source software in any capacity.

"This scenario places the Italian Competence Center for Open Source in front of a very ambitious challenge: to contribute, including through partnerships with other central and local initiatives already underway, with a sharp reversal of this trend," the center states on its homepage.