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Why Open APIs Fall Far Short of Open Source

Posted by samzenpus on from the all-due-credit dept.

itwbennett writes "451 Group analyst Jay Lyman opined in a LinuxInsider column that because of open APIs, 'non-open source software is often open enough.' Not so, says ITworld blogger Brian Proffitt. Sure, open APIs are an easy way for a small developer to 'plug into a big software ecosystem,' but it's a trap. 'If open APIs are the only connector to a software project, the destiny of that code lies solely in the hands of the owners,' says Proffitt. 'Which means that anyone connecting into the application will have to deal with the changes imposed from the top down.'"

14 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Google is an expert at this. Convincing people that their open apis are the same as open source. They have and will never opensource their revenue generating products. They themselves don't believe in the open source economic model.

    1. Re:Google by Beelzebud · · Score: 5, Funny

      Unlike you, who has apparently never heard of something called "Android".

    2. Re:Google by MyLongNickName · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The OS isn't where they make their money off this product. Being the open source alternative gives them a good market position, but their money is made from selling the hardware and tying it into the other Google services. Think of the OS as the loss leader that gets you in their store.

      --
      See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
    3. Re:Google by exomondo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You need to read the whole sentence. The OS isn't the revenue generating part of Android. The hardware is. The other Google services are. The open source OS is just the way they get their product (you) and their paying customer (also you but third parties who want your eyeballs) in the door.

      You need to read the whole sentence:
      That's open source and generates revenue through their ad network.
      As you can see i noted the way in which the Android open source software is funded by a profit model that doesn't require the software to be closed, which is very much the open source economic model, which is what i replied to:
      They themselves don't believe in the open source economic model.

  2. Open APIs? by MrEricSir · · Score: 5, Informative

    Like for example, the Windows API?

    Seems like "Open API" is another way to say "proprietary software."

    --
    There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
  3. Isn't the problem the same? by multiben · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have nothing against open source, but if an open source product changes its API for some reason, we still have changes imposed from the top down. The only option we have is to then maintain our own version of the opensource project or provide some sort of adapter component. What a headache! I use open APIs all the time. Skype, VST, google, Gracenote being just some of them. Very occaisionally they change - usually for the better due to de-cluttering the API while adding new features. I change my projects and it is rarely a problem. The overhead for doing so is tiny compared to the potential hassle of having to maintain builds and adpaters to potentially dozens of projects just because I want the API to stay exactly the same forever.

    1. Re:Isn't the problem the same? by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Except that with an open source project, you can always fork -- and if an API change is so drastic that an entire software ecosystem is threatened by it, a fork is likely to happen (or a project may simply maintain two versions -- Apache does this). Firefox has come pretty close, but extension developers do not represent a large enough ecosystem for the community to fork Firefox, and the API changes are not drastic enough to necessitate such a thing.

      --
      Palm trees and 8
    2. Re:Isn't the problem the same? by westlake · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Except that with an open source project, you can always fork --

      In theory, yes.

      In practice, the open source project can be so big or so arcane that you are going to need serious muscle and manpower behind you to make it happen.

  4. A number of traps actually by einhverfr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Open source is superior in large part because not only can the small developer use the open API's but actually shape the development of the next generation through direct access to the developers of the API's used and even code contributions themselves. That cannot compare to open API's on a closed source platform.

    --

    LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
  5. Re:Would you rather have nothing? by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I would rather not be at the mercy of Microsoft, Apple, Google, or Facebook. They do not need to change their API, they can just change the licensing and suddenly my software is threatened.

    --
    Palm trees and 8
  6. Re:Well yes by _merlin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In my experience, it's just as bad, if not worse, developing add-ons for open source projects as it is for open APIs. As much as I hate Windows, it's a good example of a stable API. It doesn't change much, you can keep running old applications, shell extensions, COM modules and whatever else. Open source systems often seem to make incompatible changes at a ridiculous pace that people with plugins are forced to keep up with. Being open source isn't a magical solution to problems. A stable API/ABI is what you want, and it can be delivered, or fail to be delivered,
    by open or closed source software alike.

  7. Re:We should have ask this instead ... by ozmanjusri · · Score: 5, Informative

    For crying out loud, the GIMP authors still refuse users the basic 16-bit per channel support !!

    No they don't.

    http://www.gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#16bit

    When can we see 16-bit per channel support (or better)?
    For some industries, especially photography, 24-bit colour depths (8 bits per channel) are a real barrier to entry. Once again, it's GEGL to the rescue. Work on integrating GEGL into GIMP began after 2.4 was released, and will span across several stable releases. This work will be completed in GIMP 3.0, which will have full support for high bit depths.

    There's also the UFRaw plugin for 16 bit image processing. http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/

    --
    "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
  8. Slowly closing APIs by Animats · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Some major APIs have slowly become less open. Google once offered a SOAP search API. Then they backed down to their "AJAX API", which could only be used with Google display widgets. Even that's now being shut down. All that's left is "Google Custom Search", which does not allow a general web search.

    Twitter once encouraged third party Twitter clients. They no longer do, and they have an authentication system that validates both app and user, so they can yank the credentials of any app they don't like.

    The Yahoo search API used to be free, then went to a pay system.

    The lesson from this is, don't use an external service API for anything important unless you have a contractual agreement that guarantees that it will stay around.

  9. Open API is only fine if it's an open standard by samael · · Score: 4, Insightful

    IMAP is an open API - truly open, because it's a standard and multiple people support it. RSS is an open API - because I can use an RSS reader with anyone I like.

    If an API is only supported by one site then it's still lock-in, and if they change it (or close down, or raise their rates) then you're still fucked.

    --
    My Journal