Stewart Sets Me Straight

Stewart Butterfield of Flickr responds to the post: Interface Remixers will Pay for Privilege of APIs by pointing out that they usually do want interface remixers to make money with their applications, because in most cases they’ll be helped out, too.

He also explains that there are cases in which Flickr won’t give out developer API keys: those cases in which it isn’t good for Flickr users or the Flickr service. I found this most interesting, and I presume that over time there will be interesting cases in which APIs are given that shouldn’t be given or revoked after being given to someone who abuses it.

So, like I said in the post, open doesn’t mean free. And, since you need an “API key” to play, you could argue they’re not that open…

It will be interesting to see how much the openness of an API influences adoption of it.