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> I strongly believe platforms should be forced to allow interoperability At what level of API with what level of SLA? > and it should be illegal to prevent o

• amelius 5y ago
  > At what level of API with what level of SLA? Could be dependent on the size of the company/userbase. E.g. Facebook (>100M users) should implement full API, while a small company inventing new social software (<100k users) should only implement minimum API.
• AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  You're making this too complicated. All that's required is that breaking changes to the API the vendor's first party client uses to access the service be documented and announced e.g. two years in advance. It doesn't matter how poor the vendor's documentation is. It doesn't even need to exist. As long as the first party client can be reverse engineered and the fruits of that work don't get wiped out every month by purposeful undocumented adversarial modifications. And then a vendor has a simple way to avoid running afoul of the rule -- keep a stable API. You can still change it, if you have to, but then the documentation of the change has to satisfy the lawyers, and more importantly you only get to do it once every two years, because you have to provide that much advance notice. And it doesn't apply to adding new features, only breaking existing ones.
  • zepto 5y ago
    > You're making this too complicated. You’re pretending this is simpler than it is. > you only get to do it once every two years, because you have to provide that much advance notice. > And it doesn't apply to adding new features, only breaking existing ones. What about changing existing features, or removing them? Can that only be done every two years?
    • AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      How is it complicated? If an API existed yesterday, and it does the same thing it did yesterday, you're fine. If you don't like how it works, add a new one and use that. You just can't take the old one out, or change how it works, without providing significant advance notice.
      • zepto 5y ago
        > significant advance notice Are you changing your mind about it being 2 years? What if you want to make a change to the system that isn’t compatible with maintaining the old api? How about if the old api can’t scale as the user base grows? This is a clearly unworkable proposal.
        • barnabee 5y ago
          > What if you want to make a change to the system that isn’t compatible with maintaining the old api? > How about if the old api can’t scale as the user base grows? Tough luck? What if Amtrak wanted to make trains twice as wide? What if EDF Energy would rather supply 160V AC power? What if it'd be easier if there were a few orders of magnitude more IP addresses? Once you build something, especially if it becomes part of the infrastructure, you have to support it, often for a longer time than you'd like. When you get to a certain scale and level of societal/economic importance, the support required of you as a company should be enforced by society. Scale brings many benefits but also should come with certain expectations and commitments. We are very bad at making tech companies play their part in this.
          • zepto 5y ago
            >> How about if the old api can’t scale as the user base grows? > Tough luck? Tough luck for whom? It seems like nobody wins in that scenario. What do you think would happen? > Once you build something, especially if it becomes part of the infrastructure… This is a circular argument. The proposal is that all services be forced to be treated as infrastructure, even if they aren’t. As I say, this is clearly unworkable. No thanks. It’s fairly obvious that the current crop of giants will not retain their power forever. I’d rather not have them declared infrastructure and become a permanent fixture. AC voltage and Railway gauges were standardized in the 1880s. The idea that Facebook should be established by law as infrastructure for the next 130 years is a level of dystopian thinking I hadn’t previously considered.