API: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:46, 27 May 2025

Revision as of 22:06, 8 June 2025

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[[Linux]] and [[Berkeley Software Distribution]] are examples of operating systems that implement the POSIX APIs.<ref name="WestDedrick16">{{Cite journal |last1=West |first1=Joel |last2=Dedrick |first2=Jason |date=2001 |title=Open source standardization: the rise of Linux in the network era |url=http://www.joelwest.org/Papers/WestDedrick2001b.pdf |journal=Knowledge, Technology & Policy |volume=14 |issue=2 |pages=88–112 |doi=10.1007/PL00022278 |access-date=2 August 2016}}</ref>

[[Microsoft]] has shown a strong commitment to a backward-compatible API, particularly within its [[Windows API]] (Win32) library, so older applications may run on newer versions of Windows using an executable-specific setting called "Compatibility Mode".<ref>

{{cite web

|author=Microsoft

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|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090926235439/http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/appcompat.mspx

|archive-date=2009-09-26

}}</ref> Whether Microsoft developers' access to the company's operating systems' internal APIs is an advantage is unclear. [[Ed Esber]] of [[Ashton-Tate]] said in a 1987 interview that [[Bill Gates]] of Microsoft told him that his developers sometimes had to rewrite software based on early APIs. Gates noted in the interview that Microsoft's [[Apple Macintosh]] applications were more successful than those for MS-DOS, because his company did not have to also devote resources to [[Classic Mac OS|Mac OS]].<ref name="computerworld19871102interview">{{Cite interview |last=Gates |first=Bill |interviewer=Paul Gillin |title=The great software debate |last2=Manzi |first2=Jim |last3=Esber |first3=Ed |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mUSIMiurpfYC&pg=PP73#v=onepage&q&f=true |access-date=2025-06-08 |work=Computerworld |issue=44 |date=1987-11-02 |page=SR7 |volume=XXI}}</ref>

}}</ref>

An API differs from an [[application binary interface]] (ABI) in that an API is source code based while an ABI is [[Binary file|binary]] based. For instance, [[POSIX]] provides APIs while the [[Linux Standard Base]] provides an ABI.<ref>{{cite web|