Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Increasingly Replaced By Open APIs
SharkLaser writes "Open APIs might be the way to get rich in 2012. At the same time, it can also be what ultimately hinders open source development. A wide range of companies, including Google, Facebook, Amazon and Twitter, are building open APIs for other developers to use and build upon. Open APIs can be used by companies to grow their user base and introduce new, interesting features on top of their platform. Independent developers can utilize established services and their users to grow their own business. A perfect example of open APIs is Facebook Apps, which lets individuals and companies develop applications and games on top of the Facebook platform. Developers gain access to Facebook's established user base and Facebook gains new features and fun stuff to do on their site. Instead of open sourcing their platforms, companies like Google and Facebook are providing Open APIs and data access to outside developers. The actual source code for the services sits safely inside the company's network and never needs to be disclosed to outside parties, thus hindering open source development."
Like I want to build my software around an API that could disappear in 6 months to a year. Google is quite bad, imo, at dropping things out of the blue, facebook likes to break things and to be honest I'm not sure I'd want to trust their competitors either.
Another way of phrasing it (which I remember being used in the context of Microsoft's API): "software sharecropping."
There is a lot of point. Few online services can handle the level of activity Facebook handles every minute. It's not just about tossing more hardware at it either; it's not easy to make such a scalable system.
Open sourcing Facebook gives developers access to the custom code that allows them to handle all this, making it easier for small startups to jump into large service hosting solutions.
Also, not sure what the summary means with the last statement. It is my understanding that Facebook HAS open sourced their server code (very likely as a jab at Google who, despite being "Open" would never dare give any competitor access to their scaling server code.)
The problem is that web app APIs can change at a moment's notice, without any announcement, and all the developers who depended on the API will be left out in the cold.
While that's true, if they do it too often and to too great an extent they'll lose developers to some other platform; if the apps start breaking without replacement, users will start to leave for other sites. Facebook (as big as it is) is nothing without its userbase.
It's official. Most of you are morons.