Re: [h2o-discuss] Mission: Source-Out!

["Jon Garfunkel" <garf@look.boston.ma.us>]

Robert Thau wrote:
>I'm not sure what you mean by "source-out mission".  Microsoft is
>certainly trying to reverse engineer AOL's protocols, but last I
>heard, they weren't planning to release the source code for their
>clients.  ("Reverse engineering" is a term of art in engineering
>generally for attempting to determine specs for somebody else's
>product by examining the product itself, so that you can make your
>own, plug-compatible version; the term is widely applied both in
>computer hardware and software engineering).

Right. Yes I am working on reverse-engineering ThirdVoice.

By "out"-ing their protocol (for all the usual open-source reasons), I'm
making a distinction by taking a more political stance, am I not?

I should take a moment to recognize that the concept of open API is
different than open source. If a software is OS, it is OAPI. Conversely,
OAPI is a necessary condition for OS. Which is why I'd like to start by
seeing ThirdVoice software as OAPI.

A simple metaphor in cooking: OS lets you see your neighbor's recipe. OAPI
lets you see what groceries your neighbor is fetching from the store. If his
supermarket

(note that iin the client/server model, the desired API is the network
protocols.)

Wrt to Instant Messaging-- Microsoft is want to open the API, not
necessarily the source. I suppose that's a valid cause for like-minded OS
advocates to support?

Jon

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