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Introduction

Promoting Open Source and Open Data at the Department of Conservation

In July 2016, Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) released guidelines, known as NZGOAL-SE, to help government agencies apply open source licences to their software 1. This was done as an extension to the existing New Zealand Government Open Access and Licensing (NZGOAL) framework 2, itself created to guide government agencies in releasing and licensing government material for re-use by others.

Consistent with this framework and commitments made by the New Zealand government 3 4, the Department of Conservation | Te Papa Atawhai is committed to providing software source code (open source) and open data to the public under suitable licences. This portal provides an entry point to much of our open source code and links to places where our open data can be found.

Portal Documentation Disclaimer

Note that documentation on this portal is provided with the intent of being a useful resource, however it is written by technical staff on a 'best-effort' basis and is not guaranteed to be accurate and/or free of errors. See the formal Disclaimer for more details.

Having said that, if you spot errors and/or have suggestions for improvement, feel free to open a pull request on the documentation portal repository.

Useful Resources

We would like to acknowledge the Ministry of Health | Manatū Hauora, Ministry of Social Development | Te Manatū Whakahiato Ora and Toitū Te Whenua | Land Information New Zealand for their assistance with our work in the open source space.

As part of our open source journey, we also have made use of the following resources:

  1. NZGOAL software extension policy, New Zealand Government CC BY 4.0, https://www.data.govt.nz/manage-data/policies/nzgoal/nzgoal-se↩
  2. https://www.data.govt.nz/manage-data/policies/nzgoal/↩
  3. https://www.data.govt.nz/manage-data/policies/open-data-policy/↩
  4. https://www.data.govt.nz/manage-data/policies/declaration-on-open-and-transparent-government/↩