The openness of Open Application Programming Interfaces

As a way to provide services or data to third-party developers, Open Application Programming Interfaces (Open APIs) have gained popularity among the programming community in recent years. Many corporations such as Google, Facebook and Twitter are developing Open APIs for their existing services, and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Information, communication & society Vol. 20; no. 11; pp. 1720 - 1736
Main Author: Qiu, Yuanbo
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Abingdon Routledge 02.11.2017
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects:
Access
Accessibility
Ambiguity
Application programming interface
Collaboration
Companies
Copyright
critical code studies
Discursive practices
Freedoms
Freeware
Interfaces
Meaning
Open APIs
open source
Openness
Political culture
Political economy
Politics
Popularity
Power
Programmers
Programming
Software
Source code
ISSN:1369-118X, 1468-4462
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:As a way to provide services or data to third-party developers, Open Application Programming Interfaces (Open APIs) have gained popularity among the programming community in recent years. Many corporations such as Google, Facebook and Twitter are developing Open APIs for their existing services, and most of them are free of charge. As these free APIs facilitate collaboration between different software platforms, many programmers treat them as alternatives to open source. Yet, some programmers have found this collaboration risky to their independence, and they have started to think about the true meaning of the openness of API. More importantly, the definition of Open APIs is rendered ambiguous through the discursive practices that define 'openness' in contemporary digital culture. Drawing on the political economy of programming and software, this study begins with the historical discussion of openness and its relationship with the power of code in programming. It points out the openness in programming is not only about the accessibility of the source code, but also the liberty to use source code without restriction. This paper then identifies the technical features of Open APIs and examines the subtle power that restricts their openness. It concludes by suggesting ways to critically understand the openness of software and their politics.
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ISSN:1369-118X
1468-4462
DOI:10.1080/1369118X.2016.1254268