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Even granting your point which I think is a bit of a stretch for "open", I think there are some unreasonable requirements at place here. >"you can interoperate

Even granting your point which I think is a bit of a stretch for "open", I think there are some unreasonable requirements at place here. >"you can interoperate with me as long as follow my terms and conditions", with those terms being considered reasonable. I wonder if the HTML5 requirement can considered reasonable. Why does the server's web service API care if the client is HTML5 or not? Microsoft says this in their post: >There was one sticking point in the collaboration. Google asked us to transition our app to a new coding language – HTML5. This was an odd request since neither YouTube’s iPhone app nor its Android app are built on HTML5. Nevertheless, we dedicated significant engineering resources to examine the possibility. At the end of the day, experts from both companies recognized that building a YouTube app based on HTML5 would be technically difficult and time consuming, which is why we assume YouTube has not yet made the conversion for its iPhone and Android apps. Google's statement is totally mum on the matter except for "it violates terms of use". If they want to call themselves open, they should atleast let us know what the HTML5 requirement is about, as it is certainly strange for a web service API. And in my opinion this makes it a 'unreasonable' condition for an open API and Google's silence does not help it. I do think Google is within their rights(absent monopoly concerns) though.

beagle3 13y ago
> I wonder if the HTML5 requirement can considered reasonable. Why does the server's web service API care if the client is HTML5 or not? Yes, it is very reasonable. The server doesn't, but google does. The HTML5 requirement means that google can change everything about their service (e.g. they can switch the ads from being h264 videos today, to javascript games tomorrow, to 3d interactive items the next day when 3d screens become the norm on phones). If they had to expose an "ad inventory API", they couldn't change these things without breaking older clients. An analogy: Microsoft relies on the TCP packets coming from YouTube being always 100 bytes or less (because they are). Google says "no, you must use a general TCP stack, because one day we might want to make our packets longer". Microsoft dedicates significant engineering resources to examine the possibility, and at the end of the day recognizes that even though they have a general purpose TCP stack, switching to it will result in some inconvenience to users. So they release an app that has a TCP stack that expects 100 bytes or less -- and google refuses to serve it. This is exactly the same, except at a higher abstraction level. Google doesn't care to spell it out, because anyone who is capable of understanding that issue already does.
- improv32 13y ago
  What does the app being written in HTML5 have to do with Google changing the API? The app would still have to be updated when the API changes. Additionally, if that were a concern of Google's, why aren't their apps written in HTML5?
  - beagle3 13y ago
    > What does the app being written in HTML5 have to do with Google changing the API? Everything. As I explained above, please reread. > The app would still have to be updated when the API changes. With an HTML5 API, the API can be stable and still support many new features, video formats, ad formats, etc without change. NOT SO if you don't let google have their iframe. > Additionally, if that were a concern of Google's, why aren't their apps written in HTML5? Because they can update their own apps whenever they want to, but they cannot force Microsoft to.
    - Dylan16807 13y ago
      >Because they can update their own apps whenever they want to No they can't. Not on the phones, where it matters.
      - beagle3 13y ago
        Yes, they can; they can have the older app say "you need to upgrade your app" (likely with a 60 or 90 day grace period), and put the new one on the play store. Alternatively, maybe their native client already falls back on an HTML5 alternative on a cue from their server - I have no idea. What is clear from this debacle, though, is that Microsoft was unable to write their app according to Google's guidelines, and then took 3 months and still couldn't fix it - which means that Google definitely cannot expect them to upgrade to newer APIs ever - so it doesn't seem onerous to require them to actually use the official API now.
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  The HTML5 requirement stops YouTube apps from having any control over the experience. They barely even deserve the name 'YouTube app' any more. They're closer to 'YouTube embed containers'. Google isn't forcing Microsoft to write better code. They're trying to force Microsoft to write no code at all, and instead execute whatever javascript comes from the Google servers, sight unseen. Google is refusing to provide a real API that deals in discrete chunks of data, where the consumer chooses how to interpret them. Even though Microsoft is willing to display ads or presumably do anything else Google asks for that its own apps do.

beagle3 13y ago

> I wonder if the HTML5 requirement can considered reasonable. Why does the server's web service API care if the client is HTML5 or not? Yes, it is very reasonable. The server doesn't, but google does. The HTML5 requirement means that google can change everything about their service (e.g. they can switch the ads from being h264 videos today, to javascript games tomorrow, to 3d interactive items the next day when 3d screens become the norm on phones). If they had to expose an "ad inventory API", they couldn't change these things without breaking older clients. An analogy: Microsoft relies on the TCP packets coming from YouTube being always 100 bytes or less (because they are). Google says "no, you must use a general TCP stack, because one day we might want to make our packets longer". Microsoft dedicates significant engineering resources to examine the possibility, and at the end of the day recognizes that even though they have a general purpose TCP stack, switching to it will result in some inconvenience to users. So they release an app that has a TCP stack that expects 100 bytes or less -- and google refuses to serve it. This is exactly the same, except at a higher abstraction level. Google doesn't care to spell it out, because anyone who is capable of understanding that issue already does.

improv32 13y ago
What does the app being written in HTML5 have to do with Google changing the API? The app would still have to be updated when the API changes. Additionally, if that were a concern of Google's, why aren't their apps written in HTML5?
- beagle3 13y ago
  > What does the app being written in HTML5 have to do with Google changing the API? Everything. As I explained above, please reread. > The app would still have to be updated when the API changes. With an HTML5 API, the API can be stable and still support many new features, video formats, ad formats, etc without change. NOT SO if you don't let google have their iframe. > Additionally, if that were a concern of Google's, why aren't their apps written in HTML5? Because they can update their own apps whenever they want to, but they cannot force Microsoft to.
  - Dylan16807 13y ago
    >Because they can update their own apps whenever they want to No they can't. Not on the phones, where it matters.
    - beagle3 13y ago
      Yes, they can; they can have the older app say "you need to upgrade your app" (likely with a 60 or 90 day grace period), and put the new one on the play store. Alternatively, maybe their native client already falls back on an HTML5 alternative on a cue from their server - I have no idea. What is clear from this debacle, though, is that Microsoft was unable to write their app according to Google's guidelines, and then took 3 months and still couldn't fix it - which means that Google definitely cannot expect them to upgrade to newer APIs ever - so it doesn't seem onerous to require them to actually use the official API now.
Dylan16807 13y ago
The HTML5 requirement stops YouTube apps from having any control over the experience. They barely even deserve the name 'YouTube app' any more. They're closer to 'YouTube embed containers'. Google isn't forcing Microsoft to write better code. They're trying to force Microsoft to write no code at all, and instead execute whatever javascript comes from the Google servers, sight unseen. Google is refusing to provide a real API that deals in discrete chunks of data, where the consumer chooses how to interpret them. Even though Microsoft is willing to display ads or presumably do anything else Google asks for that its own apps do.