Thank You Tony

Tony Tam, the creator of the OpenAPI specification, formerly known as Swagger, has announced he will be exiting his role at OAI and SmartBear. Tony says the specification is in good hands with Ron Ratovsky (@webron), Darrel Miller (@darrel_miller), and others in the OAI. Tony doesn’t give any hints about what he’ll be up to, but will be walking away from his baby entirely.

I have given Tony a hard time during the transition from Wordnik to SmartBear, and the creation of the OpenAPI, but I am a huge fan of what he has done, and super bummed to see him go–hoping he won’t leave the API community completely. There are many building blocks that go into doing APIs and OpenAPI, or Swagger, is the most significant single building block that has emerged in the seven years I’ve been doing API Evangelist. Swagger has had a profound impact on the world of APIs, and OpenAPI will continue doing this in the future, if the right conditions are still present across the API landscape.

Swagger has helped us talk about our APIs. Swagger has helped us collaborate around our APIs. Swagger has opened up a whole lifecycle of API tooling to help us along our journey. I always felt like Swagger reflected Tony’s personality, and with it’s evolution to OpenAPI, and the OpenAPI Initiative means it’s grown beyond it’s creator. OpenAPI is in good hands. I think it is a good time for Tony to step away, and feel like his baby has begun to grow up, becoming much bigger than what he can do on his own (even with Ron’s amazing help).

Thank you for all your work Tony. You made your mark on the API space. You managed to develop something that was useful for API documentation and code generation, but quickly became about design, testing, monitoring, and every other stops along the API lifecycle. I am stoked to have had the chance to work with you, and spend time telling stories about your important work. I hope you find some time to read some good books, and take time for yourself, and hopefully you don’t go to far from the API space, or at least come back and visit from time to time.