The OpenAPI Initiative, the consortium of forward-looking industry experts focused on creating, evolving, and promoting the OpenAPI Specification (OAS), a vendor-neutral, open description format for RESTful APIs, is announcing today that Osaango has joined as a new member.
Why did Osaango join the OpenAPI Initiative?
Marjukka Niinioja is the founding partner at Osaango, with over 10 years of experience with APIs. She and her team also organize apidays Helsinki and APIOps community. She explains: “We see OpenAPI specification as being both the problem and the solution. For many people, the design of API using the specification is just a technical task with the least effort put into it. For many more, the specification just doesn’t exist on their radar.”
“Of course, there are also issues like tooling support that stop people from using it. Yet, we feel that the biggest issue is lack of knowledge, especially about the productization of APIs as well as API management. Both are interlinked and both benefit from using the specification,” she adds.
“Skilled people + Good method = Great APIs”
Osaango has promoted open standards from its beginning. Marjukka Niinioja is the “mother” of APIOps Cycles method. The method is the only openly licensed, Lean, and business-oriented method for developing APIs, and the full lifecycle. The method both promotes and depends on using API specifications to design, prototype, and document the API as part of the lifecycle. It promotes “APIOps,” the automated and transparent culture of building APIs. At its core APIops is like DevOps. The APIOps Cycles method extends APIOps. It includes also elements from product management, business design, and developer experience.
The method has been adopted in organizations around the world, from Finland to Argentina. As one user from Argentina put it: “We’re starting to build an API product, and discovering APIOps Cycles was fantastic because it helped us translate Lean Startup’s ideas into our world!”
Together with partners and active community members, Osaango drives the open APIOps community with meetups and other activities to promote best practices. Osaango’s vision is to help make the API economy as known as a business model as the Software-as-a-Service, SaaS. But great APIs and great API Economy doesn’t happen by accident. For Osaango, API stands for “All People are Important,” not only application programming interface. API economy needs skilled people from all parts of the organization to collaborate. They need to understand the business benefits of having APIs. Not just any APIs but good, well-made standardized – truly Open APIs. This in turn requires design and development methods, and standards intended for APIs. This is how great APIs are built!
Osaango is committed as an OpenAPI Initiative member to help lower the barriers of using the OpenAPI specification. Some of the first tasks for Osaango to take part in has been to:
- Tackle the usability and accessibility of the OpenAPI documentation created by the initiative
- Collect questions from the community about the various API specifications to be answered and documented to promote awareness and learning.
Learn more about the openly licensed method for API Development: https://www.apiopscycles.com
OpenAPI Resources
To learn more about how to participate in the evolution of the OpenAPI Specification: https://www.openapis.org/participate/how-to-contribute
- Become a Member
- OpenAPI Specification Twitter
- OpenAPI Specification GitHub – Get started immediately!
- Share your OpenAPI Spec v3 Implementations
About the OpenAPI Initiative
The OpenAPI Initiative (OAI) was created by a consortium of forward-looking industry experts who recognize the immense value of standardizing on how APIs are described. As an open governance structure under the Linux Foundation, the OAI is focused on creating, evolving and promoting a vendor neutral description format. The OpenAPI Specification was originally based on the Swagger Specification, donated by SmartBear Software. To get involved with the OpenAPI Initiative, please visit https://www.openapis.org
About Linux Foundation
Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation projects like Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js and more are considered critical to the development of the world’s most important infrastructure. Its development methodology leverages established best practices and addresses the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.