[okfn-discuss] APIs vs bulk data, in the face of a government shutdown

Thu Oct 3 16:39:24 UTC 2013

Hi Eric,

This is a very good point and I would note the Open Definition has always
required bulk data and *not* APIs. There's a specific section on APIs
versus Bulk Access in the Open Data overview at http://okfn.org/opendata/.
Inlining here:

<quote>
Providing data through an API is great - and often more convenient for many
uses than bulk access. However, the Open Definition requires bulk access
rather than an API, why? The answer is 2-fold:

* Bulk access allows you to build an API (if you want) but an API does not
mean you get all the data (think about e.g. twitter - using their API it
would be impossible or very hard (and very inefficient) to get access to
the database in bulk). Thus, bulk is the only way to guarantee full access
to the data for everyone.
* Bulk access is significantly cheaper that providing an API. Today you can
store gigabytes of data for less than a dollar a month. By contrast running
even a basic API can cost much more and running a proper API that supports
high demand can be very expensive.

Thus, having an API is not a requirement for data to be open - though it
is, of course, great if one is provided.

Moreover, it is perfectly fine for someone to charge for access to open
data through an API - as long as they also provide the data for free in
bulk.  (Strictly speaking, the requirement isn’t that it’s free but that
it’s no more than the extra cost of reproduction. For online download,
that’s very close to free.) This makes sense: open *data* must be free but
open data *services* (such as an API) can be charged for and this provides
one of the most immediate business opportunities around open data.
</quote>

Regards,

Rufus

On 3 October 2013 16:19, Eric Mill <eric at sunlightfoundation.com> wrote:

> Hey all - since the US government just withdrew a bunch of its data from
> the Internet as part of its shutdown, I wrote about the role of the open
> government community in preservation, and how an API-only approach makes
> that harder:
>
>
> http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/10/02/government-apis-arent-a-backup-plan/
>
> I imagine these are points most of you are familiar with, but APIs are a
> huge focus of the US government's open data strategy, and preservation
> hasn't been widely discussed until this shutdown.
>
> -- Eric
>
> --
> Developer | sunlightfoundation.com
>
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-- 
*

Rufus Pollock

Founder and Executive Director | skype: rufuspollock |
@rufuspollock<https://twitter.com/rufuspollock>

The Open Knowledge Foundation <http://okfn.org/>

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