A recent announcement by Dropbox that it plans to deprecate its Sync and Datastore APIs over the next 12 months has garnered attention.
In conjunction with a preview of Dropbox API v2, Dropbox said it will be deprecating the APIs to focus instead on its Core API. Dropbox cited two main reasons for deprecating the two APIs:
- Having multiple SDKs/APIs caused developer confusion. Developers would start with one SDK and later find out that they need to use a different one. Dropbox would like to have a single SDK to use.
- The goal of the Sync API was simplicity but the implementation process was a bit more complex on Dropbox side. Dropbox did not have all the resources to meet all the possible syncing scenarios. Instead, Dropbox would rather provide the basic tools to allow the developers to build the syncing solutions that they need.
In a recent blog, J. Chris Anderson, co-founder and chief architect of mobile for Couchbase, commented on the announcement.
“If you’ve been burned by losing access to an API, suddenly the appeal of open source ecosystems is a lot more clear," wrote Anderson. "In this case, consider it an opportunity to move to a more powerful stack, and one that you control.”
To read Anderson’s blog, go here.
To read the notice from Dropbox, go here.