We never stop hearing about how APIs are facilitating the development of all kinds of weird and wonderful apps, and now the Linux Foundation is jumping on the bandwagon with the launch of the Open API Initiative (OAI) to promote a common, open API standard.

The initiative, which is backed by names like Google, IBM, Microsoft, Capital One Financial Corp., and PayPal Holdings Inc., will build on top of the Swagger specification. Swagger is an open-source description system designed to make APIs “autodiscoverable and self-documenting”, allowing the creation of “a vendor neutral, portable, and open specification for providing metadata for RESTful APIs,” the Linux Foundation said in a statement. In English, that translates to making it easier for developers to find and leverage APIs.

“Swagger is considered one of the most popular frameworks for building APIs,” explained Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “When an open source project reaches this level of maturity, it just can’t be managed by one company, organization or developer. The Open API Initiative will extend this technology to advance connected application development through open standards”.

As any developer will tell you, APIs are critical to the creation and consumption of modern applications, but making them work is not an easy task. Most APIs are very complex and can cause major headaches for developers, even with all the correct documentation. If APIs aren’t simple to work with, many developers will just throw in the towel.

This is partly why Swagger has become so popular. According to BetaNews, downloads of Swagger have almost tripled in the last year, and the framework is considered to be the most popular for defining and creating RESTful APIs. The Swagger open-source project was recently acquired by a company called SmartBear, which is now working closely with industry peers to ensure the specification can be developed for years to come.

“Across industries, Swagger has gained incredible adoption for its expressiveness, comprehensive toolchain and vibrant community alike,” said Tony Tam, VP of Products, Swagger at SmartBear. “Working with both API vendors and consumers, SmartBear sees the value in open governance around the specification which will allow for even more rapid growth and adoption across the API industry, and is honored to donate the Swagger Specification into the Open API Initiative under The Linux Foundation”.

Swagger offers a number of existing features that should prove to be good starting points for testing and collating APIs at scale, including automatic generation of documentation and the ability to test API interactions without registering an API key.

More information can be had from the initiative’s new website.