Disclaimer

The collective behind this guideline has a positive bias towards Open Source

We are moved by the conviction that, as a default option, Open Source is the preferable approach for development cooperation (DC) and international cooperation (IC) projects because:

• DC projects are most frequently publicly financed (see public money public code). In addition, many public institutions financing such projects have politically induced preferences in favour of open source (see e.g. Principles of Digital Development)

• of the collaborative nature of these projects (co-financing of projects through several donors; mutualization and cross-fertilization)

• open source makes the involvement of local IT-companies and individuals for the development and maintenance etc. Easier, which can also trigger positive side effects for the local IT sector.

• developed software can become a tool and the intellectual capital for a new organization in the event of a project spin-off or transfer.

However, we are also pragmatic and fully acknowledge that, in some situations, proprietary solutions are the way to go. This is typically the case when a partner already uses a proprietary software or there is existing and affordable proprietary software that fulfills the requirements better. In this case it often makes more sense to further build their capacities on this software than to re-invent the wheel and force new tools, processes and approaches on them. It can also make sense if the partner has no or little own IT capacities and maintenance is expensive (e.g. due to a lack of an open source community or lack of scale).