Why Open APIs Fall Far Short of Open Source

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.'"

Comments

Open APIs?

[MrEricSir]

Like for example, the Windows API?

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

Isn't the problem the same?

[multiben]

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.

Re:Isn't the problem the same?

[westlake]

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.

Re:Would you rather have nothing?

[betterunixthanunix]

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.

Re:Google

[Beelzebud]

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

Re:Well yes

[_merlin]

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.

Re:We should have ask this instead ...

[ozmanjusri]

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/