I wanted to provide an easy way to publish and share some of the tools that I'm tracking on in the OpenAPI ecosystem, so I launched my API toolbox. In addition to tracking on the name, description, logo, and URL for OpenAPI tooling, I also wanted to categorize them, helping me better understand the different types of tools that are emerging. As I do with all my research, I published the OpenAPI Toolbox as a Github repository, leveraging its YAML data core to store all the tools.
It will be a never ending project for me to add, update, and archive abandoned projects, but before I got too far down the road I wanted to also begin tracking on the license for each of the tools. I'm still deciding whether or not I want the toolbox to exclusively contain openly licensed tools, or look to provide a more comprehensive directory of tooling that includes unknown and proprietary solutions. I think for now I will just flag any tool I cannot find a license for, and follow up with the owner--it gives me a good excuse to reach out and see if there is anyone home.
Eventually, I want to also provide a search for the toolbox that allows users to search for tools and filter by license. Most of the tools have been Apache 2.0 or MIT license, details that I will continue to keep tracking and reporting on. If you know of any tooling that employs the OpenAPI Specification that should be included feel free to submit a Github issue for the project, or submit a pull request on the repository and add it to the YAML data file that drives that OpenAPI Toolbox.
