Towards an API Commons
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The document discusses the need for an API commons concept to facilitate open and shareable API definitions, aiming to reduce client code complexity and potential copyright issues. It highlights the benefits of community-driven standards, increased adoption, and collaboration among developers while proposing a structure based on Creative Commons licensing. Challenges regarding adoption, discovery, and technical implementation are acknowledged, but the initiative is seen as critical for the future viability of APIs.
Towards an API Commons
- 1. Towards an API Commons Kin Lane and Steven Willmott
- 7. The Number of APIs will explode Also Awesome!
- 8. But there is a problem...
- 9. A huge amount of client code is going to have to be written
- 10. Intelligent Clients: e.g. Hypermedia Will Take A Long time to Work Automation: Code Generation Didn’t work out so well last time around.. But we know how to solve this right?...
- 11. And there is at least one other problem: copyright
- 12. API Copyright • Legal Grey Area • Hundreds of thousands of APIs means a lot of overlap • Risk in Re-use • No attribution and a lot of unhappiness
- 13. Very Messy Hundreds of Thousands / Millions of APIs with similar definitions, all needing client code and potential copyright claims in the mix
- 14. So What If API Definitions were actually explicitly open and shareable instead?
- 15. Why Not... Borrow from the Creative Commons and Open Source?
- 17. The Idea • Enable (and Encourage) people to openly declare API Interface definitions to be under Reusable • Enable discovery, sharing and forking • Apply to API Definitions and Data Models (not implementations)
- 18. Example • Facilities API • Own the definition • Explicitly make it Sharable •Others can Reuse •Others can Extend •Client code can be shared So can the server code •
- 19. Example Objective C Ruby PHP API Definition AP1 1 AP1 2 AP1 3 Swagger WADL WSDL RAML ... Single Interface Multiple Implementations
- 20. Example API Definition Swagger WADL WSDL RAML JSON Schema etc.. Copyright Free } Others can Reuse, Implement Servers Implement Clients Improve and Remix
- 21. Benefits to API Designer • Get broader adoption • Get more shared tooling • Feedback & Input • Community Driven Standardisation • Kudos Just Like Open Source
- 22. Benefits of using APIS from the Commons • Save work • Clear copyright footing • Increase the likelyhood of clients being available • Help improve something existing • Many Eyeballs ...: Just Like Open Source
- 24. Properties • Bottom Up: Just put a manifest somewhere (no “control”) • Format agnostic • On platforms like Github, it’s Forkable • Uses established licenses (Creative Commons)
- 25. Licensing • Highly Recommend: Creative Commons Attribution (Permit Unrestricted Commercial Use)
- 26. But How do you Start? • 10 APIs in as examples • More to come • Mostly public sector <- makes most sense • Accumulate commercial ones as we go • Encourage use of Existing Data Models
- 27. apicommons.org • Aiming to index commons APIs • Place to stimulate discussion and best practice • No commercial interest • No reason for this to be the only hub
- 29. Will people do this? • Is it valuable enough? • What about commercial conflicts? • How will it be bootstrapped?
- 30. Value for APIs as a Whole • Huge: In fact - APIs are probably not viable as a technology without it! • Reduce the amount of client code by orders of magnitude • We will end up with fewer better API interfaces and more APIs
- 31. Why does this matter? 50000000 No Sharing Shared Interfaces Semantic Technology 37500000 25000000 12500000 0 10000 100000 1000000 10000000 Assume 5 clients per API, Assume factor of 10 shared API defs over time
- 32. Open Data? • Seems to be the logical place to start • There is no incentive to have different models for the same data! • No commercial barriers
- 33. Commercial Use • Some API Designs are Competitive Advantage • In some cases shared standards would be better • Parallels to the evolution of Open Source
- 34. Why Not OS? • There have been copyright lawsuits so descriptions are at least subject to copyright • Descriptions are generally not executable by themselves • Maybe Open Source licenses are needed in the future too
- 35. Why not just Creative Commons? • Creative Commons is great • But we need more structure and guidance • We also need to be able to discover APIs in the commons easily • We need to evaluate if creative commons is the right model
- 37. Challenges • Technical • Understanding • Adoption • Business Models
- 38. Adoption • No doubt it will take time • It doesn’t make sense for everybody today • Over time though it’ll become a popular choice
- 39. Thank You! • http://apicommons.org • Group: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/apicommons • Twitter: @apicommons
- 40. • Photo Credits: • • Ryusuke Komori / 500px Milan Cherian / 500px