Why would companies care?

[FMX]

Dear Aral and folks,

I am not sure if this is is covered already, but just empathizing with
the API suppliers: why would they support this initiative? Sure, when
a paid service is delivering an API service I can understand they
should come up with some SLA. But from a business point-of-view, why
would a company enforce themself rules/guidelines to a free service?

I don't know whether Aral's particular Facebook issue involves a paid
API, but businesses think in terms of cutting costs and throwing
overboard ballast. What 'benefits' will they have? I can only think of
a 'more open image'.

Just genuine curiosity, I totally dig this initiative.

Regards,

Bas

[Martin Pilkington]

As someone who runs a business I find this description a tad hurtful ;)

Dumb businesses think about cutting costs, smart businesses think about getting value for money. Sure you could cut costs by using a cheaper material, but will that really help in the long run if it is also inferior? People might find it tacky and it could break more frequently, causing you to replace it.

Same with APIs, if you just cut costs as much as possible on support, documentation etc, then you'll piss people off and they'll go elsewhere meaning you lose money. Sometimes spending a little money can save you a lot. As they say, don't be pennywise but pound foolish.

Thanks

Martin

[Ross Ritchey]

They won't care at first. What does a fairly small group of
developers matter in the long run? The small voices mean nothing, and
we are just starting.

After some time and dedication to the cause, we can get some companies
on board based on the principle of the thing. As more developers jump
on board and begin to boycott API's that don't follow this
methodology, the API creators will begin losing money to competing
techs that do. Once this starts happening, API creators will begin to
see the value in following something like this.

Imagine how different the world would be today if the majority of
developers boycotted the iPhone because of the ridiculous terms of the
license agreement. More-so, what if Apple had followed these types of
methodologies when setting up the App Store?

There will be problems, and it will likely be slow moving to start.
But time and dedication can go a long way towards making a difference.

The point is, if we can get this off the ground and remain dedicated
to the cause, companies will care because they will lose money if they
don't. When developers develop for a competing platform that follows
good methods and not for yours, you feel it in your pocketbook. And
that doesn't even bring innovation into the mix.....

[FMX]

@Martin: Didn't intend to offend anyone, but I am seeing a clear
parallel (in the news and blogosphere) between company sizes and
'stubbornness', whether it's Apple, Microsoft or Google. Small
companies might be 'customer oriented' but it seems large companies
are 'target oriented' as you can't even call them anymore (Google
Apps?).

@Ross: Thanks for the extensive elaboration. I wonder, however, if
Facebook doesn't have a too large monopoly already to suffer from
'competition pressure'. How are the technological experts at Facebook
team going to convince the board of directors the API architecture
needs to be more redundant (spare datacenter?) and the API team must
be expanded for quick resolving of issues. There is no clear ROI
(afaik) unless premium API plans will be introduced complying with
this certification. Also, I'm afraid a regular app user doesn't know
what an API is, and app developers will have a hard way convincing
users their social network is rubbish because of 'API limitations'.

On the other hand, Facebook is a technology-oriented company... they
do presentations and develop PHP extensions they later open-source for
the masses. It might a good way for a technology-oriented company to
show off the quality levels with a certification like this. Sincerely
hope that will be the case.

[Amber]

Early adopting companies may get a little press out of it, but as a
company thinking of publishing an API in the next year or so, I would
do it to increase developer goodwill and encourage developers to use
it. For this reason I think companies publishing new APIs will be
interested in signing this. Previously published APIs would be a
harder sell but some might still do it, and it's short-sighted to
think that all the APIs out there now are the only ones of value in
the future.

[Ross Ritchey]

Also, it is really easy for app developers to convince users that
their network is bad. All they have to do is not develop for it. If
there are no quality applications on an application platform, the
users will naturally move away from it.

For example, if Google had released the Android phone platform
simultaneously with Apples iPhone, and developers had said "hey, the
Android platform is better for me than the iPhone platform because of
developer rights" - the Apple App Store would not have nearly as many
apps as the Android app store. Users would naturally begin to lean
towards the Android platform because it would have more and better
apps. This is starting to happen already, as we begin to see iPhone
users switch to the Android platform to get away from ATT, or to move
to a (opionionated) better platform. Developers are beginning to get
fed up with Apple, and are therefore switching to other competing
technologies, and the users will inevitably follow.

Developers are extremely powerful in this regard. Anyone who
publishes an API for application development should understand that it
is the developers that push their platform. The success of the
platform relies intrinsically on the will of the developer to build
for that platform.

[phunehehe]

Hi Bas,

Joining this group, I have a vision towards a mutual agreement between
developers.
Does anyone use HTML validation services anymore? If I see a page with
the certifying logo of W3C, or a logo of AnyBrowser, then I believe
that page was well written. You can say that I'm a geek, and only
geeks care about such things for a website...
Now if we consider API services, business owners and application
developers will be comfortable working with a stable and developer-
friendly service. We may not choose a service if we there are better
alternatives.

Let's do this! Let's build up a considerable force so that developers
everywhere know that we certify something valuable. Let's gain the
support from big service providers as well, so that devrights become a
sign of qualification, so that when looking at an API service
developers can know if that is worth elaborating or not.
Anyway, I think this gonna be tough, especially at the first stages
when we are quite a small group. However, I believe that developers
(from both sides - API designers or application developers) will give
us the support.

Regards,
Phu