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Parse open-sources its SDKs for app developers
Parse, the Facebook-owned platform for building native mobile applications, has moved to open-source its SDKs, beginning with kits for Android, iOS and OS X. Those SDKs are available on GitHub now, while SDKs for JavaScript, React, Windows Phone and Xamarin will be made available soon.
According to Parse, by open-sourcing its SDKs, developers will be able to see how the code functions and interacts with their apps and Parse’s back end. It’ll also help developers to identify bugs more easily, and work with Parse to solve them, if necessary.
In a blog post, Parse engineer Nikita Lutsenko said that open-sourcing the SDKs would help developers get up and running faster.
“By sharing our SDK source code with the community, we want to share everything we’ve learned along the way, as we hope this will benefit others working on similar challenges in the mobile development space,” Lutsenko wrote.
Facebook acquired Parse back in April 2013, saying at the time it wanted to help developers build apps that could span mobile devices and other platforms. To date, more than 800 active app-device pairs are powered by Parse SDKs, Lutsenko said.
Speaking to TechCrunch, Parse co-founder James Yu revealed that developers have been asking for its SDKs to be open-sourced for a while, citing a need for transparency and a desire to know how the SDKs work with backend servers.
““Before today, our SDK was a black box to them,” Yu said. “They put it into their application and use it at the SDK level. But a lot of them crave transparency and want to see under the hood.”
The benefits for Parse are obvious. By open-sourcing its SDKs, it’ll receive a lot more advice, contributions and testing of its SDKs. Meanwhile, customers will hopefully receive better software.
“Releasing the SDKs as open source signals that the code is stable enough for outsiders to bang on it and potentially extend it,” John Rymer of Forrester Research told Infoworld. “Many developers prefer open source licenses as they can evaluate the source to troubleshoot without issue. I see no business downside, as Parse doesn’t monetize its SDKs through developer fees.”
Parse said it will publish a number of blog posts in the coming weeks that explain exactly how its SDK works. The first of these has already been penned, and details how its asynchronous API works.
Parse is not new to open-source. A quick look at its GitHub repository reveals more than 40 products, which include its command line tool.
Image credit: geralt via pixabay.com
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