Hacker News Reader

Comment by such12 | Hacker News Reader

> Interoperability requirements can be easy as mandating documentation and legal permission for interaction with API and it can be up to the competitors to implement the easy switching experience.

This is a misunderstanding of the problem. Once there is an API it can’t be changed without breaking the clients.

Therefore independent progress is no longer possible. This destroys innovation.

View on HN

Do you suggest that all the progress has come from the closed API software and open API stuff has stagnated?

Because that's not the case, it's just a fallacy. Close or open API, they all have legacy users and the solution to the legacy users is the same. Obviously, if the competitor fails to update it's software for the updated API they will fail to acquire new clients and that would be the competitors problem.

> Do you suggest that all the progress has come from the closed API software and open API stuff has stagnated?

No. Why would you think that?

Then why would you suggest that if the API is forced to be open the innovation will stall?

Because of the forced part. Normally API owners get to make their own choices about what to change and when. That goes away if they are forced.

What about it? Why would you think that now they won't be able to?

Because the requirements of the APIs will be established by law and subject to litigation by competitors and api consumers.

That’s what forced means.

That's hyperbole. The requirement would probably be something like document it and don't block it.

This is quite obviously wrong. Law doesn’t work like this.

Competitors and api consumers would be able to argue that any change they didn’t like was anticompetitive and request injunctive relief. It would be up to the courts to decide each time.

There already is a directive on open access to public sector data. It does not force any particular standard, protocol, let alone concrete data/interface schema. It just states data publishers must openly publish documentation, use industry standards, open data formats and protocols, and publish machine readable and processable data.

Of course there wonʼt be a mandate on exact API endpoints or data structures for every kind of service anyone could possibly create. That would be an impossible undertaking even for a bureaucracy like the EU.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com