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Aug 18
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OpenAPI Welcomes New Member APImetrics!

By Announcement, Blog

Welcome!

APImetrics provides an enterprise focused API monitoring solution that interfaces with REST and SOAP API protocols. Monitoring is supported by analytics and customizable downtime alerts and provides data to enterprises to meet service level agreements (SLAs) and customer expectations. 

“The economy has increasingly become a digital economy and the digital economy has been increasingly becoming an API economy over the past decade,” said said Dr. Paul Cray, Head of Machine Learning and Standards at APImetrics. “The COVID-19 crisis has only accelerated that trend. Global quality standards that are meaningful, quantifiable and measurable are essential to maximizing the value that API creators and users provide across many industries. That’s why the OpenAPI Initiative and APImetrics are such a perfect fit, and I am looking forward to working with OAI on these standards.”

APImetrics is particularly interested in working with OAI around standards that can help with the definition and measurement of Service Level Objectives as well as issues around certification, compliance, conformance and continuous testing and monitoring of APIs.

“APImetrics is a welcome addition to the OpenAPI Initiative,” said Marsh Gardiner, Product Manager, Google Cloud, and Technical Steering Committee member, OpenAPI Initiative. “When the industry works together to address common API description challenges, such as describing SLOs and SLAs, everybody wins.” 

OpenAPI Resources

To learn more about how to participate in the evolution of the OpenAPI Specification: https://www.openapis.org/participate/how-to-contribute

Join us for ASC 2020

Register now for the 2020 API Specifications Conference, Sept 9-10

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.

Aug 13
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ASC Speakers Announced!

By Blog

The 2020 speakers have been announced, and their talks cover the spectrum of expert technologists, business professionals, open source contributors, and more! Learn from companies and organizations like GitHub, Google, Microsoft, MuleSoft, OpenTravel Alliance, Postman, SmartBear, TravelPort, Vonage, and others. Some highlights include:

Dealing with legacy systems? Go through “From 0 to OpenAPI: Describing a 10-year old API with OpenAPI @ GitHub” by Marc-André Giroux and Andrew Hoglund, GitHub

Want to learn about timing pandemic-helping techniques? Take in “All the Interoperability, But None of the Contact” by Jeff ErnstFriedman, OpenTravel Alliance

Sneakily fascinated for the inside scoop of how Postman dogfoods their own tech? Attend “How Postman uses Postman to Build APIs” by Joyce Lin, Postman 

Curious about how to implement a unified API design process that goes beyond adopting a single API style or specification? You definitely want to check out “GraphQL, gRPC and REST, Oh My!: A Method for Unified API Design”  by Mike Amundsen, amundsen.com Inc.

Hungering to inject delight into the developer experience? Perhaps “Create Delightful SDKs from OpenAPI” by Lorna Mitchell, Vonage, is your cup of tea.

Increase your skills, meet your peers, get a look into the latest research and latest real-world case studies. ASC 2020 is a virtual conference this year, being held Sept 9-10. 

Check out the full schedule now! https://asc2020.sched.com/

Register today! https://events.linuxfoundation.org/openapi-asc/register/

ASC 2020 - API Specifications Conference - Virtual Experience, September 9 - 10. Hosted by the OpenAPI Initiative
Jul 23
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Postman Joins the OAI to Support the OpenAPI Specification

By Announcement, Blog

This blog post was contributed by Kin Lane, Chief Evangelist, Postman

When Postman launched its API builder last year, we were amazed to see how popular OpenAPI was with our users, when it came to designing and developing APIs. Our usage stats helped us realize just how important the OpenAPI Specification is to how our customers design and build their APIs. Today Postman is joining the OpenAPI Initiative in order to work with the 35 other OAI members to steer the specification forward. Together we will hope to continue to support open source tooling that builds on the specification and to grow a stronger OpenAPI community so as to ensure the future of this important industry standard. 

Historically, Postman collections were how API providers defined their APIs on the platform. With the introduction of the API builder, more API providers began using OpenAPI as the central definition of each API being developed. Over the years, Postman collections have evolved to allow developers to test, mock, document, and automate parts of the API lifecycle. Along with this evolution, each collection can be generated from an OpenAPI, pushing us to deliver a growing number of specific capabilities that help our customers leverage OpenAPI as the API contract for use across their API operations:

  • Import – You can import an OpenAPI document into the Postman and maintain it as the central contract for each individual API, which is used to validate and notify developers when documentation, collections, or tests are out of sync with the OpenAPI contract.
  • Generate – You can generate Postman collections from your OpenAPI definition, establishing derivatives of your API contracts for use in documenting, mocking, and testing your APIs in an ongoing fashion across regions.
  • Validate – Every collection generated from an OpenAPI specification can be validated across the OpenAPI contract, helping keep documentation, mock servers, and testing infrastructure in alignment across operations.
  • GitHub sync – When you are managing your OpenAPI document in Postman using the API Builder, you can sync it to GitHub, allowing it to be used in other systems, allowing changes to occur in Postman or via other tools.

OpenAPI has become part of the API factory floor for Postman customers. Beyond what a spec describes, Postman makes it easier to work with APIs by allowing you to store tokens or keys for multiple profiles or lifecycle stages and to augment with specific values for running tests or for monitoring. The OpenAPI Specification provides a way to define what is possible with HTTP APIs, with Postman collections emerging as a way to define, execute, and automate each stop along that APIs lifecycle. A stronger relationship between OpenAPI and Postman has helped our customers, and we’re thrilled to be joining the conversation about what the OpenAPI roadmap might be, and to help realize the full benefits of using OpenAPI across the API lifecycle.

Jul 20
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Announcing the New OpenAPI Initiative Special Interest Group for Travel

By Announcement, Blog

Join OpenTravel and the OpenAPI Initiative Travel Workgroup on July 22, 2020, as we bring the focus to the European traveller. Click here to get the Zoom invite. To get all the latest updates and announcements, please click here and sign up for regular updates!

The travel industry relies on APIs. Connecting business among diverse industries like travel, tourism and hospitality, and representing an incredible array of companies that need to efficiently communicate and relay electronic information includes airlines, car rental firms, hotels, tour operators, travel agencies, technology companies and many more. 

With this in mind, the OpenAPI Initiative is creating a Travel Special Interest Group (SIG) to support the adoption of APIs and facilitate the digital transformation throughout the travel industry. 

The OpenAPI TravelSIG mission is to “enable and nurture the growth of API adoption, development and developers throughout the travel vertical through promotion of the OpenAPI Initiative.” It will meet as needed to discuss common challenges and solutions with the travel space as well as provide a single, unified voice in coordinating with the OAI’s technical steering committee as well as form on an ad hoc basis by request from the TSC, TOB or the BGB as requested by any of those bodies.

The Travel SIG will designate a point of contact to communicate with the governing board and other bodies within OpenAPI as needed.

Participation in the Travel SIG will be open to any member of the OAI. Participation from non-members – we like to say “soon-to-be members!” –  will be allowed on a case-by-case basis to provide relevant subject matter expertise and help serve as an outreach opportunity to bring on new members and adopters for OpenAPI Initiative.

Please join the Travel SIG! Click here to get the Zoom invite for the next meeting on July 22, 2020, and here and sign up for regular updates!

Jul 17
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ASC 2020 – Keynote Speakers

By Blog

We are thrilled to announce two of our keynote speakers for ASC 2020 coming to your couch virtually, September 9-10.

Keynote Speaker, Lorna Mitchell. Developer Advocate and API Enthusiast, Vonage

Lorna Mitchell, polyglot software developer and developer relations professional, will be joining us to share her abundance of wisdom. Lorna’s depth of API experience and ability to humorously remind us of the best practices that deadlines make us forget, guarantee that this session will be time well spent.

Keynote speaker, Mark Nottingham. Senior Principal Engineer, Fastly.

Mark Nottingham is a name that will be familiar to many who have found themselves in the predicament of having to read an IETF specification to solve an API problem. Whether you need to format an error payload, resolve a URI Template, or have a debate about the relative merits of well-known URLs, Mark is wealth of reasonable opinions backed by years of experience.

Come join us at https://apispecs.io , your APIs will thank you for it.

Jun 23
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OpenAPI Welcomes the OpenTravel Alliance as New Member

By Announcement, Blog


OpenAPI welcomes the OpenTravel Alliance as its newest member!

OpenTravel is a not-for-profit trade association that develops data messaging structures in order to facilitate communication between the many facets of the travel industry. It is the travel industry’s only open-source, interoperability data standard. Using OpenTravel messaging, travelers can search, book, pay and check-in/out in a completely contactless environment.

“We see solid strategic alignment between the mission of OpenTravel Alliance and that of the OpenAPI Initiative,” said Jeff ErnstFriedman, Executive Director at OpenTravel Alliance. “We share a goal of promoting open standards in the API economy and OAI is the nexus for all aspects of generating an API marketplace. We are looking forward to bringing the voice of the travel industry to the 2020 API Specifications Conference being held Sept 9 – 10.”

Tens of thousands of OpenTravel messaging structures are currently in use. The open source standard encompass air, rail, cruise, golf, tour packages, ground transportation, hotel and car rentals. The organization got its start using an XML messaging system, but has since made OpenTravel Messaging available in JSON, WSDL and OpenAPI Spec. 

To help the travel industry adapt to COVID-19, OpenTravel has rolled out a new COVID protocol messaging system. In the upcoming release OpenTravel messaging will include capabilities that allow travel companies to take advantage of the pent-up demand and increase revenue.

“Our technology allows for interoperability between suppliers that will increase revenue opportunities and decrease technology costs,” ErnstFriedman said. “The interoperability component of OpenTravel Messaging will allow for a seamless traveler experience that will reduce physical touchpoints and expedite the movement of travelers throughout their journey.” 

“OpenTravel Alliance is an exciting addition to the OpenAPI Initiative,” said Marsh Gardiner, Product Manager, Google Cloud, and Technical Steering Committee member, OpenAPI Initiative. “Standardizing how APIs are described to streamline development makes good sense for many different industries, and travel in particular can benefit.” 

OpenAPI Resources

To learn more about how to participate in the evolution of the OpenAPI Specification: https://www.openapis.org/participate/how-to-contribute

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.

Jun 18
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OpenAPI 3.1.0 RC0 – It’s here!

By Blog

How time flies! It is approaching three years since we released OpenAPI 3.0.0. During this time we have made a number of patch releases that were mostly minor clarifications and corrections. Today, however, is different.

Today, we are announcing the first release candidate of OpenAPI 3.1.0.

Shiny stuff

Three of the bigger changes in this new version include:

  • A new top-level element for describing Webhooks that are registered and managed out of band. Many thanks to Lorna Mitchell for driving this effort, using our new-fangled proposal process and regularly reminding us to focus on shipping. 
  • Support for identifying API licenses using the standard SPDX identifier.
  • The PathItems object is now optional to make it simpler to create reusable libraries of components. Reusable PathItems can be described in the components object. There is also support for describing APIs secured using client certificates.

A great alignment

While these enhancements (and many others described in our release notes) address some of the most requested features by the OpenAPI developer community, they are outshined by the most significant improvement that we have made in OpenAPI 3.1.0. This version of the OpenAPI Specification now supports 100% compatibility with the latest draft of JSON Schema. This has been a significant effort between the OpenAPI developer community and the members of JSON Schema community. A special callout to Henry Andrews, Phil Sturgeon, and Ben Hutton for all their work, support and patient explanations they have provided.

Small changes make a big difference

To the regular user of OpenAPI descriptions, the differences in the 3.1.0 Schema object may not be immediately apparent. In fact, v3.0.x descriptions will quite happily pass v3.1.0 validation.  Adopting the new capabilities can be done incrementally. There are many new capabilities that are possible with the latest version of JSON Schema, but we will leave those details for a later blog post.

When minor changes are major

In the OpenAPI v3 specification we adopted semantic versioning to communicate the significance of the changes. Semantic versioning is a popular methodology that was created for managing software packages.  Minor version updates indicate that changes are backward compatible, whereas major updates are not. It is not obvious what backward compatible changes mean when talking about a specification. In v3.0.3 we introduced language to try and be precise about what it meant to be a backward compatible change.  We naively believed this would help.

When discussing the final details of aligning with JSON Schema, we identified there was particularly thorny issues with the readOnly and writeOnly properties that are defined in JSON Schema but described to have slightly different behavior in OpenAPI. In order to achieve our goal of full alignment with JSON Schema, we had to drop the OpenAPI behavior. Technically, this change might “break” some piece of tooling out there. We haven’t found it yet (we’re still looking). Semantic versioning would insist that this change be denoted as 4.0.0. However, this update to the specification is not such a major update, rather there are a few small breaking changes.

A release of a 4.0.0 of the OpenAPI Specification would bring a set of expectations. Major version bumps generally also face adoption resistance. This update to OpenAPI is not a major update–it has some nice improvements, and we are now on a much better path with JSON Schema, but to force it into a major release would have created a mismatch of expectations.

This conundrum led the Technical Steering Committee to force a vote on the issue, as we could not reach consensus for the first time. As you may have guessed, the final decision was to drop the requirements of semantic versioning. While opinions are still mixed on whether this is the right thing to do, this gives us the space in the future to better use major and minor version numbers that more accurately convey the significance of the version changes to the vast majority of users.

Ta Da!

And so, OpenAPI 3.1.0 RC0 is ready for final review, and this is your invitation to comment before it graduates. After we resolve any final housekeeping issues, we will declare 3.1.0 done and Ship It!

Apr 14
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OpenAPI Initiative Welcomes Bloomberg as Newest Member

By Announcement, Blog

OpenAPI Initiative continues fast pace of membership growth; Bloomberg joins 38 current members that include Atlassian, eBay, Google, Microsoft, Red Hat, SmartBear, and many more

SAN FRANCISCO – April 14, 2020 – 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 Bloomberg has joined as a new member.

As a global leader in business and financial information, data, news and analytics, Bloomberg believes that standardizing Web APIs throughout the financial industry will provide consistency and value across the global capital markets ecosystem. Bloomberg sees the advantages of implementing the OpenAPI Specification to improve time to market, shorten development lifecycles, and reduce implementation costs.

“Bloomberg is excited to join the OpenAPI Initiative, where we’ll have the opportunity to help shape the OpenAPI Specification and its role in the global financial industry,” said Richard Norton, Head, Data License Engineering Group at Bloomberg. “As our enterprise customers are increasingly looking to access our data feeds to power their in-house analytics and trading applications, we are confident that the OpenAPI Specification will enable them to seamlessly manage their Bloomberg data. Plus, the entire industry will benefit from our involvement in the standard’s governance process as we’ll be able to take their learnings and contribute back to future iterations of the de facto standard for describing Web APIs.”

“We are excited to welcome Bloomberg to the OpenAPI Initiative. Major corporations are taking advantage of the OpenAPI Spec for a simple reason: developer productivity. Instead of producing SDKs, organizations can produce OpenAPI specs, and then generate their SDKs in any language they’d like to use, immediately benefitting their customers,” said Marsh Gardiner, Product Manager, Google, and Technical Steering Committee, OpenAPI Initiative. “We see firsthand business and technical productivity wins when organizations use the OpenAPI Spec. Bloomberg has embraced open source, and the benefits for their enterprise customers managing Bloomberg data is immense.”

Hundreds of software engineers across Bloomberg’s global engineering workforce have provided code, documentation, tests, or other improvements to open source projects. In areas relevant to Bloomberg’s infrastructure needs, Bloomberg engineers have become project leaders and committers. To find out more about Bloomberg’s open source activities: https://www.TechAtBloomberg.com

OpenAPI Resources

To learn more about 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.

Feb 26
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Liferay Joins OpenAPI Initiative

By Blog

OpenAPI welcomes Liferay as our newest OpenAPI member!

Having a robust API infrastructure is critical to meeting diverse customer requirements for a Digital Experience Platform (DXP) product like Liferay DXP. DXP is an emerging category of enterprise software that provides an architecture for companies to digitize business operations, deliver connected customer experiences, and gather actionable customer insight.

For example, customers may wish to build a mobile app that leverages rich personalized content provided by Liferay DXP or bring product information from a product catalog into a store-front powered by Liferay Commerce. Because integrations frequently involve different teams and departments using different tools, standardizing on the OpenAPI Specification is key to accelerating development and minimizing potential hurdles in the development process. 

“Liferay is proud to join the OpenAPI Initiative,” said Michael Han, Chief Technology Officer at Liferay, Inc. “Open source and open ecosystems are a core part of who we are, and we appreciate the opportunity to work with the community to drive API standardization and adoption. Adopting the OpenAPI Specification also helps Liferay customers get to business value faster by allowing their developers to use an industry standard structure to access Liferay headless services.”

Liferay has placed special emphasis on delivering powerful APIs based on the OpenAPI specification as a way to better address their customers’ specific needs and be able to better provide tools to customers to build their own APIs. 

“We’re pleased to welcome Liferay to OpenAPI and to see expansion of an even broader range of enterprise applications,” said Marsh Gardiner, Product Manager, Google Cloud, and Technical Steering Committee member, OpenAPI Initiative. “It’s great to see companies that build their business around integration fully embrace the OpenAPI Specification.”

Liferay has recently completed the first phase of mapping all of their APIs to the OpenAPI Specification. 

Liferay Resources

OpenAPI Resources

To learn more about how to participate in the evolution of the OpenAPI Specification: https://www.openapis.org/participate/how-to-contribute

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.

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Jan 29
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Interzoid Joins the OpenAPI Initiative to Help Build Frictionless Data Future

By Announcement, Blog

OpenAPI welcomes Interzoid as a new OpenAPI member!

“We are excited to be a part of accelerating the adoption of a standard that we believe will play a central role in the upward march of the API Economy. The fast and easy movement of valuable data around the Web, combined with our data asset improvement API offerings, is greatly enhanced by leveraging the OpenAPI Specification,” said Robert Brauer, Interzoid, CEO. “As someone who has been working with APIs for nearly two decades, I think the OpenAPI Specification is one of the more attractive and useful innovations yet.”

Interzoid was founded in 2019 and has built their software stack on open source technology, including Linux, Angular, the Go programming language, and PostgreSQL. Interzoid provides 20+ APIs that provide services like generated similarity keys to match disparate data sets using their City Match API, Full Name Match API, Company Match API, and more. Interzoid is looking to build future open source projects that support the company strategy of frictionless data.

“We are excited to welcome Interzoid as a new member of the OpenAPI Initiative,” said Marsh Gardiner, Product Manager, Google Cloud, and Technical Steering Committee member, OpenAPI Initiative. “Interzoid has used the OpenAPI 3.0 Specification format to formally describe all of their APIs. The specification is a great way to help developers quickly evaluate and understand the details of the services they’re providing.”

List of Interzoid APIs Available: https://www.interzoid.com/services

OpenAPI Resources

To learn more about participate in the evolution of the OpenAPI Specification: https://www.openapis.org/participate/how-to-contribute

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.

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