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eBay Starts Open-Source Community
Matt wrote to mention a MacWorld story discussing a new initiative by auction site eBay to open source parts of its search functionality, in order to expand their coder resources. From the article: " The software will be available under a new program called Community Codebase, which was announced at the eBay Developers Conference in San Jose, California, on Tuesday. The Community Codebase is free for all members of eBay's Developers Program and PayPal Developer Network. (Pay Pal is owned by eBay.) It allows individual developers and companies to access source code for various eBay and PayPal tools and applications. An example is a Java application that allows TiVo users to search and bid on items via their digital video recorder boxes. Other examples include a Firefox toolbar, various Pay Pal toolkits and an application used to extract information from Pay Pal's database and putting it into Microsoft Corp.'s Excel spreadsheet software."
What exactly is the definition of 'open source'. Could you open code to a specific community and still call it open source?
eBay to open source parts of its search functionality, in order to expand their coder resources.
Isn't this the same eBay that was suing people who were making auction search sites that linked to eBay items?
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Currently eBay charges as little as a hundred dollars but up to $50,000 dollars before you can run your code against the production database. I think the open source move is a good one however some of us developers with limited resources won't be jumping on until it is "free as in beer".
Microsoft Corp.'s Excel spreadsheet software
I read that as "Microsoft Corp.'s Excellent spreadsheet software". I thought the world was going to end or something.
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While I applaud the small amount of legitimacy this may add to the open source community, it appears this may be just a way to make money off the open source community rather than truly help it. Open source is free and always will be (unless you count the s**tload of work that goes into it). On the other hand, this could also be used to help open source people make some money back for their invaluable efforts. The cynic in me thinks it's the former though, not the ladder. Only time will tell.
It allows individual developers and companies to access source code for various eBay and PayPal tools and applications.
Or, phrasing it another way, it allows Ebaypal to take advantage of work done for them for free by someone else.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Whenever I do a search on Ebay, I always find ridiculous auctions. Just do a search for a Powermac G5 and you'll see what I mean. There are inevitably those auctions with buy it now of $29 where they claim you'll get a system for free. Of course, I look past those but it would be nice if someone could write a moderation tool that would allow you to filter your results. Perhaps with ebay opening up their systems a bit, a crafty developer could go in and make changes such as this, which would markedly improve the ebay experience.
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Since he made this statement, it may be possible that he has something (no idea what) in mind to return to the "community." IMHO, it appears that he already knows that eBay is not likely to get something for nothing.
"Teleporting Rodents with D-Cell Battery Displacement" theory -- IgnoramusMaximus (692000)
Ebay certainly doesn't make it intuitive to report suspicious/fraudulent auctions. I did a recent search for Canon 1ds Mark 1 cameras and I found one listed for about 2k under it's normal price. In looking at the seller's other items, I discovered about 60 high priced tech items ranging from miniDV camcorders to plasma monitors, all listed in lots of three and ending at the same time.
Checking the seller's previous ebay activity, it contained only small purchases of seeds and gardening supplies and then lay dormant for a year until suddenly about 60 high priced items showed up.
That took about 3 minutes of work to check out, but I had to spend another 20 minutes trying to figure out how to report a fraudulent auction to ebay.
I think they really just don't want to be bothered with policing their own site and responding to complaints, and that's pretty unfortunate as their service is amazingly efficient and well-liked in nearly every other respect.
:::: the insomniac's digest
Full disclosure: I work for eBay in the Developer Support Group.
What the Community Codebase is about is making it easier for new applications to go live that access eBay, not to open the eBay system's code, or to try to create an unpaid labor market for maintaining eBay's code.
There are around 1500 third party applications that use the eBay API suites to create new listings on eBay, etc. A couple of quick examples to get a feel are ChannelAdvisor (channeladvisor.com), SquareTrade (squaretrade.com) and a host of others.
Approximately 20% of all eBay listings are not listed through the eBay website but rather through these third-party applications. The goal of the Community Codebase and the changes to the Individual Tier of the eBay Developers Program is to make it easier to write applications that access eBay.
Hope this helps,
Bruce Thompson
Staff DTS Engineer
eBay Inc.
Who, me?
IANAT, but i'm sorry, i am so sick of major corporation taking advantage of the "open source" hype simply for the benefit of their business.
/me steps off box of detergent
it helps them in two ways right off the bat:
1. it's a marketing gimic, because the news gets spread (as here) and
2. it garners them a better image immediately, because regardless of whether a single line of code gets written, they look good for being so magnanimous.
and if it DOES get written, then you can add #3 to that list: free code for ___, inc.
free software should be a *given* -- not some special marketing campaign.
Full disclosure: I work for eBay in the Developer Support group.
I'm honestly not sure where the idea that we are open sourcing our search code came from. Let me quickly correct that: eBay is not open sourcing any of it's operational software.
What we are doing is creating an open source repository for our SDKs and sample code for accessing the eBay systems. What other sort of projects get hosted on the Community Codebase remains to be seen, but the idea is that eBay engineers and third-party developers will be able to work together on projects that benefit the community as a whole.
We are also changing the terms of the Individual Tier of the eBay Developers Program allowing third-party applications to access the eBay systems without any fees and with increased monthly call limits.
The APIs that are available cover searching, listing auctions, managing feedback and purchases, etc.
The benefit to the individual is to enable developers who want to be able to access the eBay site to do so without the expense of joining the Commercial Tiers of the Program; the benefit to eBay is that every new application that goes live tends to represent an increase in listings and that translates into an increase in revenue.
Cheers,
Bruce Thompson
Staff DTS Engineer
eBay Inc.
Who, me?
EBay is a respected player in the business world.
Surely you must be joking. They use an e-commerce structure (Paypal) that acts as a bank, handles millions and millions of dollars like a bank, is structured exactly like a bank, but is *not FDIC-insured* and has the gall to block accounts at random without explanation or recourse.
I don't really know what's respectful about using such a shaky financial tool to do business. I'm surprised they haven't been taken under by some huge class-action lawsuit, or by the feds who should damn well step in and force them to play by the book already.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Hi Rosco,
It's not so much that there are other auction sites using eBay's backend but rather around 1500 applications of various sorts that provide services to eBay buyers and/or sellers. To get a sense of what's available, head over to the Solutions Directory for a list.
Cheers,
Bruce.
Who, me?
The Community Codebase is free for all members of eBay's Developers Program and PayPal Developer Network
If you have to be a member of some "developer program" or "developer network", then the code isn't open source. The term "Community Codebase" also suggests that it isn't open source, but that it is a program like Microsoft's "Shared Source" or Sun's "Community Source". Let's hope that eBay didn't mislabel a non-open source license as open source.
Even if the eBay code turns out to be truly open source, it is still closely tied to eBay's service. On balance, it's still better if such code is open sourced, but the decision for eBay to open source a bit of client code is a completely different business decision than, say, IBM or Intel open sourcing a compiler.
Companies like Sun, Microsoft, and (possibly) eBay seem to be trying hard to redefine the term open source for their own marketing purposes. Don't let them get away with it. A company that misapplies the term open source is being deceptive and should be condemned strongly.
(I suppose it isn't surprising that someone like McVoy would go along with this sort of thing; he has, after all, been trying to take advantage of the open source community as well.)
I see your points. And I admitt, that "eBay *only* takes" is not precisely enough to express it.
But my rationale on it is, that all these 3rd-party applications will be centered around the eBay-platform.
While improvements to these 3rd party apps will benefit the OSS-developers App as well as eBay, the "collective" effect of many improvements towards the single central platform will benefit eBay more, than those developers.
Of course, one can disagree to my rationale and certainly you will, arguing that there is no "aggregated" effect on the central platform.
I don't think it is realy a question who of us is right. What matters is, if the developers that participate in this project feel screewed or not.
If I where in your position I would prepare for some additional "incentive" for developers to participate. Doesn't neccessarily be direct payment, small discounts on the fees for the trades or even just some rewards for expecially intresting/usefull developments would certainly do.
Small goodies like that certainly give develpment some OSS additional boost, anyway.
eBay certainly isn't a street begger, that has to pass its had around and ask for gifts.
There's nothing wrong with them opening their APIs and code to developers, in fact it may prove very useful. Still, it shouldn't be mistaken for a great act of charity on their part.
"EBay is a respected player in the business world."
That's true, if you completely reverse the statement. EBay and, if I may say so, their satanic 'child' PayPal are a few of the worst companies I've ever had the displeasure of doing business with.
Starting with the illegitamate charge backs (PayPal) I've mentioned on Slashdot on my most recent post, poor customer service (PayPal & Ebay) in the form of not responding to emails, a nice little trick of charging for auctions that were canceled (eBay), cancelling an auction the day before for selling game box of World of Warcraft (eBay) and more. I really would hate to be someone who does a lot of business with them.
If eBay really has opened up some code and it is Open enough that you have the freedom, as you should, to take it and use it as you want then I look forward to competing products that will result. I'd guess that anyone could do customer service better then eBay and if they want to give out the source to tools that can help their competitors (and others) why not :).
It is, however, FDIC "pass-through" insured.
(i.e. the bank that actually holds the funds is FDIC insured, so if paypal folds, your money is still held in a FDIC insured account and would be eligible to be covered by FDIC insurance.
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."