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Perhaps "don't depend on someone else's API unless you're paying for it" is a better attitude. Depending on someone else to keep giving you something for free
by wccrawford 14y ago
Perhaps "don't depend on someone else's API unless you're paying for it" is a better attitude. Depending on someone else to keep giving you something for free is problematic at best.
- ghshephard 14y agoThat's not correct either. There are lots of free APIs that are reliably stable, available, and profitable. Think about how many tens of billions of dollars have been made writing to the win32 API. Likewise, the community of GNU/Linux APIs (Perhaps the first time I've ever felt it was appropriate to write GNU/Linux in a sentence :-) - glibc, etc... The question you have to ask yourself is how much leverage the third-party has over you if they decided they want to screw you over. Even still, you may want to write for that platform if the $$$ is there. Look at iOS platform - Apple totally owns you. Or, even better, look at the PS3/Wii/XBox platforms - the owners of those APIs have even more control over what you can do - but still very profitable platforms to develop for. At the end of the day, a judgement call has to be made. No easy rules.