Rackspace Cloud APIs now open source

Rackspace has open sourced the specifications for its Cloud Servers and Cloud Files APIs under the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license. Developers are now free to copy, implement, and modify the specifications, helping to enable a truly open cloud.

The company has also made available its Cloud Files language bindings for Java, PHP, Python, C#, and Ruby under the MIT license. The source code for these bindings is publicly available on GitHub, a public software versioning system, where external developers can now contribute.

Rackspace has also produced a technical guideline for Cloud Servers language bindings which is also available on GitHub. This guideline will enable developers to build Cloud Servers bindings in a variety of languages, but with a consistent design and feel. Rackspace expects to offer a reference implementation in Python soon and is aware of Ruby, Perl, Java, and Twisted Python Cloud Servers bindings that are in the process of being developed.

“It’s great to see Rackspace push the movement forward by getting more code into the hands of the community,” stated, Alex Polvi, CEO, Cloudkick, a leading cloud management platform developer. “We are thrilled to see the company moving so quickly and proactively to promote an open cloud.”