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Open Source is a form of licensing agreement that allows users to freely modify an existing project, generate a new project, or even derive a larger project from an existing one, enhancing the original work. Works which use these licenses are often made collaboratively, and over time a culture of practices and norms have developed to facilitate this process. At its best, this Open Source culture enables the equal exchange of ideas within a community to harness group creativity, ease of use, and flexibility. Open Source software is typically free of charge, and often so too is support, provided on a community-driven and best effort basis. Using (as opposed to making) Open Source software often incurs a lower total cost of ownership than its closed source and proprietary alternatives.
At GIZ and openIMIS, our diverse network of partners and collaborators demands that we work with a variety of software tools and platforms. This diversity can result in incompatible standards and licenses being used, causing compatibility issues when working across different groups. This manual provides best practices for reducing friction and avoiding incompatibilities during collaboration, drawn from our experience at openIMIS. This guide also understands the advantages of using proprietary solutions such as those provided by Microsoft and Adobe, and describes working compromises which minimize inconvenience and disruption. In places we recommend the use of desktop applications for creating documents and assets, while providing web-based alternatives in case installing local software is not possible. We prioritise widely supported standardised data formats throughout.
Following these guidelines will improve the interoperability across openIMIS contributors and partner projects, including other GIZ projects. The goal for these guidelines is to provide a pragmatic approach in order to enable collaborators to easily work together on and with design elements create an impact across the openIMIS open systems.openIMIS ecosystem. In addition, following these guidelines will improve the interoperability across openIMIS contributors and partner projects, including other GIZ projects.
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These guidelines are intended to be used as recommendations and inspiration as opposed to fixed requirements. If you have questions or are not sure about something, the best thing to do is file an issue on our Jira Service Desk to start a conversation with other openIMIS contributors. |
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While using LibreOffice, you can convert files manually by using the Save As option and choosing the format. You can also convert files directly in the command line.
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Zamzar is an online file conversion platform that lets you convert documents, images, videos, sound, and many more Open Standards. As you are not required to install it, you can use it from any browser, even mobile.
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Note: We cannot endorse the use of third party tools that are not independently audited. Use at your own risk. |
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BatchPhoto Espresso also lets you rename the picture and choose a quality and size before saving it to your device. It can be used on any operating system that supports a web browser, including Windows, Linux, and macOS.
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Note: We cannot endorse the use of third party tools that are not independently audited. Use at your own risk. |
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Creative Commons is not an appropriate license for software code. It is a better fit for creative assets (like images and audio) used in software projects. The Creative Commons tool tool provides convenient advice on which Creative Commons license to choose.
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