APInf with APIOps
APInf has created a lot of new trends in the way the open source business is conducted by a startup. APInf committed to be fully open source without any tiers, has open process development process and still has a solid business model. After APInf spin off as its own company from its parent company, it has committed 10% to 15% of effort towards building and contributing APIOps community. There were many questions and doubts raised about APInf’s involvement in APIOps. As a CEO of APInf, I hope to clarify why APInf and its team has been actively contributing to APIOps and what is in it for APInf.
Communities are Must
During last 15 years, we have been seeing the importance of communities and impact of them on the companies involved in open source business. Just to mention some QT, Android and MeeGo, where I had a chance witness very closely. From my point of view without communities building an open source business is unimaginable.
When APInf started as a small experimental project 2.5 years ago, we presented the idea and also the benefits it could bring to API owners and developers. We were often hit with questions like, “We dont think we need this”, “Why we need to do definition and designing of APIs?”, “Why we even need an API at the first place?”. We realized at that point that we need to build an awareness about APIs, their design and managing them.
Due to the realization we had from the feedback we got, we co-founded APIOps community back in 2015 with Jarkko Moilanen, to build awareness about APIs, API Designs and management. Since then APIOps has set out to be a neutral, non-profit community with the objective of building awareness and define best practices in the area of APIs. We have been also encouraging more businesses to involve in APIOps to join APIOps and bring their challenges or concerns or questions or issues and have an open discussion with community to find a solution and at the same time share the knowledge which would benefit everyone who are involved in APIOps community. APIOps is like building a campfire meetings around the world to enable discussions about APIs.
APInf’s Commitment to APIOps
Starting from February, 2017 APInf team has been contributing actively to APIOps by having experimentation Mondays, trademarking “APIOps” and some employees contributing by talking in meetups and sharing their knowledge about the APIs and best practices around APIs. All the contributions are done under MIT license and done under the APIOps project umbrella. APInf is committed to keep all the contributions towards APIOps free of IPRs and transparent. At the same time APInf encourages APIOps to bring recognition and identity to all the contributors. In this step APInf trademarked “APIOps” and contributed to APIOps community, so that the brand is not abused by any business or individual for their own benefit against community interests. APIOps trademark stays with community, contributors and members are encouraged to address it. APIOps trademark brings an unique identity to the community. APInf commits to stay as active contributor and partner of APIOps.
I request all the businesses who are involved with APIs, one way or the other to join the local APIOps group, participate in community activities to gain knowledge to be on the top of what is happening in the API world and at same time contribute towards the activities of APIOps. We have fire wood, we have APIs and lot of knowledge to share and topics to discuss, so lets start a camp fire and have an open discussion about APIs in APIOps meetups.
