The rise of the API as a means to deliver services and other business capabilties from the Internet isn't a new development. However, it is a safe prediction for 2009 that the number and variety of APIs for accessing business services will continue to proliferate. In theory, industry standards should benefit as more service providers look for proven models to put up new APIs. You'd also imagine that customers would be demanding adherence to industry standards in the hope that standards would be of help should customers want to get their data back from "the cloud" (see Vinnie Mirchandani's related advice for customers as they move into the cloud).

The reality regarding the role of industry standards as the basis for APIs is messy. In the next several posts, I'll take a look at some of the opportunities and challenges for industry standards. First, I'll take a look at how the licenses under which standards are offered by different standards organizations help and hinder standards adoption and convergence.

Derivations and Modifications

I'm not an IP attorney, but you don't need to be an IP attorney to realize that the lack of a standard license for business language standards adds costs, complexity, and poses a barrier to opportunistic use and convergence of industry standards. The matrix below isn't intended as anything like an in-depth analysis of the IP policies of different standards organizations. But then again, most developers and implementers don't do much research into these licenses anyway. They simply assume freely available standards are available for use without restriction - which isn't always a good assumption. While not wildly divergent, the licenses described below do illustrate a few common differences among licenses.