The Linux Foundation is launching an Open API Initiative to extend the Swagger specification, which is a description format used by developers to design and deliver APIs that support a range of connected applications and services. Smart bear is making the initial contributions to the Open API. Founding members of the initiative include 3Scale, Apigee, Capital One, Google, IBM, Intuit, Microsoft, PayPal and Restlet.
The goal of the initiative is to extend the Swagger specification and format to create an open technical community within which members can easily contribute to building a vendor neutral, portable and open specification for providing metadata for RESTful APIs. This open specification will allow both humans and computers to discover and understand the capabilities of the respective services with a minimal amount of implementation logic. The Initiative will also promote and facilitate the adoption and use of an open API standard.
“Swagger is considered one of the most popular frameworks for building APIs. When an open source project reaches this level of maturity, it just can’t be managed by one company, organization or developer,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “The Open API Initiative will extend this technology to advance connected application development through open standards.”
Swagger was created in 2010 and offered under an open source license a year later.
