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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 , by enhancing the original work. Works which that use these licenses are often made collaboratively, and over time . As Open Source has established itself, a culture of practices and norms have developed to facilitate this processaround the concept. 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 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 loss of work during collaboration, drawn from our experience at openIMIS. This guide also understands the advantages of using proprietary solutions products such as those provided by Microsoft and Adobe, and describes working compromises which that minimize inconvenience and disruption. In places we recommend the use of This guide provides recommendations for both desktop applications for creating documents and assets , while providing as well as web-based alternatives in case installing local software is not possible. We prioritise widely supported standardised data formats throughout.

The goal for of these guidelines is to provide a pragmatic approach in order to enable enhance collaboration across the openIMIS ecosystem. In addition, following Following these guidelines will improve the interoperability across openIMIS contributors and partner projects. In the following, guidelines for We broke this down into three major areas are presented:

1. Open Standards: Introduction and best practices practises pertaining open standards and file formats for best compatibility across the openIMIS community.

2. Software & Tools: Analyzing various Various software options for creating and converting design assets and documents while adhering Open Standards.

3. Licensing: Introducing Creative Commons licenses to cover licensing guidelines for design assets and documents.

Additionally, at the end of this manual we will be providing provide a set of resources for design asset templates which that respect guidelines and best practices practises outlined in this manual

Open Standards

In a world where paper documents are being rapidly supplanted by electronic records, long As more documents go digital, we have to start thinking about how do we maintain long-term access to the that data becomes critical. This is especially the case for critical for documents that have lasting importance and significance, such as legal contracts and government documents that stay valid and relevant over decades. Just as pens and pencils are available from many manufacturers and vendors , document file formats and the applications which use them need to be supported by and available from multiple vendors. This guarantees . Choosing the file formats that can be read and supported by multiple software providers can help ensure long-term access to data, even if individual vendor companies disappear, change documents. Even if one provider disappears, changes strategy, or dramatically change their prices, the data remains accessible through other providers. The digital format in which information is stored can either be “open” or “closed”. An Open Standard is one which that is available for everyone to use, free of charge, and capable of being built upon – for example into new software products, without any limitations. Developers can use these to produce multiple software packages, services, and products by using these formats. 

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A “closed” file format is one that is proprietary. Usually this means that the technical details of the format, including its specification, are secret and known only to its original creators. It may also mean that the format is protected by copytightcopyright, trademarks, or patents, and is therefore only usable by those who have obtained (purchased) the necessary rights – even if the specification has been made public. Using proprietary file formats for which the specification is not publicly available can create dependence on third-party software or file format license owners. The latter type of closed format can cause significant challenges to reusing the information stored in it. Additional software or licensing may be required tomorrow in order to continue to access data which you create today.

The openIMIS project will be primarily focused on image and text documentation purposesprocesses. This includes branding assets, marketing materials, and communication kits. Vector files should always be stored as .svg instead of the proprietary .ai (limited to being used only by Adobe Illustrator). In this case, .svg is the Open Standard that can easily be read and modified without vendor lock-in or being inaccessible due to license losses. As it is , at its essence, basically a subset of another Open Standard called XML, it can be modified in a text editor, without a graphica graphics user interface.

Converting proprietary formats to Open Standards

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There is no standardized standardised process for converting proprietary formats to Open Standards. It always depends on the complexity of the format and the files, and varies from format to format. For example, converting a file from .ai to .svg using Adobe Illustrator may be as easy as exporting as .svg from the software, but sometimes something can go wrong in the process, which may go undetected until the results are closely inspected. These edge cases are the hardest ones to work around – usually an error in an .ai to .svg conversation may require rewriting or recreating the assets and then export them as .svg to ensure maximum compatibility.

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GIMP is a free and open-source graphics editor used for image retouching and editing, free-form drawing, converting between different image formats, and more specialized tasks. GIMP can be used for opening and changing many types of file formats. GIMP is released under GPLv3+ licenses and is available for Linux, macOS, and Microsoft Windows. It further also offers a Wiki page where it gives with explanations and detailed information as to how to use and understand the product.

GIMP is an alternative to Adobe Photoshop, recommended for creation of raster (non-vector) graphics. It outputs Open Standard files, it's extensible, flexible, and easy to use. The latest version of GIMP provides several new features with an easier-to-use user interface.

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Inkscape is a free and open-source vector graphics editor. This multi-platform application can be used to create and edit vector graphics such as illustrations, diagrams, line arts, charts, logos, icons, and complex paintings. Inkscape's primary vector graphics format is the Open Standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG); however, many other formats can be imported and exported. It is licensed under the General Public License (GPL).

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This is going to be the software that openIMIS will use the most to create digital assets, as its a well-supported project and the current version is stable. While there is plenty of other proprietary and/or Open Source software that can create SVGs (including Adobe Illustrator), Inkscape is the one that we recommend. Try it , and start building up some knowledge and experience around with the software. If it’s not a suitable option for your needs, Adobe Illustrator can still be used, but keep in mind that output should only be in the SVG format.

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LibreOffice Draw is a free and Open Source vector graphics editor. Draw lets you produce anything from a quick sketch to a complex plan and gives you the means to communicate with graphics or diagrams, flowcharts, and even technical drawings. It supports Open Standards that allow you to use documents from other programs so you don't have to isolate yourself or your workflow into a LibreOffice world. LibreOffice Draw uses Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF) (.odg graphics extension) as its default output format as an international standard file format.

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Diagrams.net (formerly draw.io) is an Open Source online platform created to help you design flowcharts, process diagramsdiagrammes, org chartsorganigrammes, UML, ER diagramsdiagrammes, network diagrams diagrammes, and much more. You can create your own custom shape libraries or use their large collection of shape libraries which . These offer hundreds of visual elements, making it plain simple and easy working with metadata to pack more useful information into your diagramsdiagrammes. With numerous shape libraries offering hundreds of visual elements, Diagrams.net covers every use case you can think of for creating diagrams diagrammes by embedding them within Atlassian Confluence and Jira software.

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