Extremadura is the poorest region of Spain, lagging behind the rest of the country in both the economic and technological arena. Though short on financial resources, the region has set very high goals for itself in its Regional Strategy on Information Society and the results are being so satisfactory that have placed the regional strategy as a worldwide best practice.

Extremadura is the first Regional Administration which has promoted Free/Libre and Open Source Software among his citizens and the first one to develop and distribute FLOSS together with technical support in the systems’ migration. The innovative character is not technological but methodological, i. e., a political top to bottom strategy with clear objectives and outcomes:

- 1 PC per two students, already reached in 2003. (The average in the EU is 11)

- The choice of a distribution which is axed on the needs of end users principally and with a design that allow the user to recognised himself culturally when using GnuLinEx.

- The establishment of a support system to ensure the migration through the adaptation of existing actions and projects.

- Demonstration effect: The relative ease with which the migration was assured has allowed all regional agents envisaging the use of new tools of the Information Society, through a cheap software, with low maintenance cost, that assures control of updates, adaptations and future modifications, as well as independence from a single supplier

- The control of the updates and future developments is exercised by the Administration.

http://www.linex.org
http://europa.eu.int/idabc/servlets/Doc?id=1641