Intro Paragraph of OpenSocial
editOpenSocial is a public specification that defines a component hosting environment (container) and a set of common application programming interfaces (APIs) for web-based applications. Initially, it was designed for social network applications and developed by Google along with MySpace and a number of other social networks. In more recent times, it has become adopted as a general use runtime environment for allowing untrusted and partially trusted components from third parties to run in an existing web application. The OpenSocial Foundation moved to integrate or support numerous other open web technologies. This includes OAuth and OAuth 2.0, Activity Streams, and Portable Contacts, among others.
It was released on November 1, 2007.[1] Applications implementing the OpenSocial APIs are interoperable with any social network system that supports them. At launch, OpenSocial took a one-size-fits-all approach to development. As it became more robust and the user-base expanded, OpenSocial modularized the platform to allow developers to only include the parts of the platform it needed.[2]
On 16 December 2014 the W3C issued a press release, "OpenSocial Foundation Moving Standards Work to W3C Social Web Activity" [3], that OpenSocial would no longer exist as a separate entity and encouraged the OpenSocial community to continue development work through the W3C Social Web Activity in the Social Web Working Group and Social Interest Group. The OpenSocial Foundation stated that "the community will have a better chance of realizing an open social web through discussions at a single organization, and the OpenSocial Foundation board believes that working as an integrated part of W3C will help reach more communities that will benefit from open social standards."[4] On 1 January 2015, opensocial.org began redirecting all page requests to https://www.w3.org/blog/2014/12/opensocial-foundation-moves-standards-work-to-w3c-social-web-activity/.[4]
Release Versions
editLegend: Discontinued Current
| Version | Release Date | Release Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2.5.1[5] | August 30, 2013 | View Release Notes |
| 2.5.0[6] | August 28, 2012 | View Release Notes |
| 2.0.1[7] | November 23, 2011 | View Release Notes |
| 2.0.0[8] | August 18, 2011 | View Release Notes |
| 1.1.0[9] | November 18, 2010 | View Release Notes |
| 1.0.0[2] | March 9, 2010 | View Release Notes |
| 0.9.0[10] | April 15, 2009 | View Release Notes |
| 0.8.1[11] | September 25, 2008 | View Release Notes |
| 0.8.0[12] | May 27, 2008 | View Release Notes |
| 0.7.0[13] | January 25, 2008 | View Release Notes |
| 0.6.0[14] | December 21, 2007 | View Release Notes |
| 0.5.0[15] | November 9, 2007 | View Release Notes |
Version 2.5.1
editChanges to the REST API were made to address several issues that required changes in the OpenSocial specifications so it could be used by the Open Mobile Alliance[5].
Version 2.5.0
editCommon Containers were added that provided "a set of common services that Container developers can leverage for features like in-browser Gadget lifecycle event callbacks, Embedded Experiences, selection handlers, and action handlers."[6] A new Metadata API gives OpenSocial applications the ability to adapt to the capabilities of different OpenSocial containers. The WAP authentication extension was deprecated.
Version 2.0.1
editOAuth 2.0 support was finalized in this version of OpenSocial.[7]
Version 2.0.0
editOpenSocial introduced support for Activity Streams. JSON had emerged as the preferred data format and support for ATOM was deprecated. The Gadget format was simplified to give the ability to define a template library within a Gadget specification.[8] While not finalized, the groundwork for OAuth 2.0 support was put in place.
Version 1.1.0
editIn response to enterprise environment needs, OpenSocial added support for advanced mashup scenarios. It enabled gadgets to "securely message each other in a loosely coupled manner."[9] This new feature was called Inter-Gadget Communication.
Version 1.0.0
editOpenSocial acknowledged that the "one-size-fits-all" approach it was taking was not going to work for the diverse type of websites that had adopted the platform. To address this issue, OpenSocial modularized into four compliance modules: Core API Server, Core Gadget Server, Social API Server, and Social Gadget Server.[2] This allowed a developer to pick and choose the modules they wanted to use while using other services that aren't part of OpenSocial. Extensions were introduced to allow developers to extend OpenSocial containers.
Version 0.9.0
editIn response to feedback and observation of how developers were using the API, this version focused on making "application development, testing, and deployment easier and faster, while reducing the learning curve for new app developers."[10] The OpenSocial Javascript API was streamlined to make it lightweight while retaining the power of the old Javascript API. Proxied content was introduced to eliminate the need for developers to work around previous AJAX limitations. Proxied content allows a content to be fetched from a url and displayed in a <Content> tag. In response to a common use of sending data to a remote server immediately after a request, OpenSocial 0.9.0 introduced data pipelining. Data pipelining allows the developer to specify the social data the application will need and make the data immediately available. OpenSocial Templates were introduced to create data-driven UI with a separation of markup and programmatic logic. OpenSocial Markup Language (OSML Markup) is a new set of standardized tags to accomplish common tasks or safely perform normally unsafe operations within templates. OSML is extensible. Developers can create a library of their own custom tags.
Version 0.8.1
editThis minor release placed major focus on server-to-server protocols as "the Person schema has been aligned with the Portable Contacts effort, and an optional RPC proposal has been added."[11] JSON-RPC protocol was added to increase server to server functionality. The RESTful protocol that was introduced in v0.8.0 underwent a large revision with several fields being added, modified, and deleted.
Version 0.8.0
editOpenSocial changed specifications for containers to implement a RESTful API. Many of the OpenSocial Javascript API changes made this version incompatible with previous versions. Existing gadgets continued to use v0.7.0. After updating the gadget, it would use v0.8.0. Security improved with the introduction of OAuth authorization and HTML sanitation, and container lifecycle events.[12] Persistence data was stored in JSON.
Version 0.7.0
editReleased as the "first iteration that can fully support rich, social applications."[13] It added several standard fields for profile information, the ability to send a message to install an application, an Activity template to control activity notifications about what users have been doing, and a simplified persistence API to use feeds instead of global and instance-scoped application data. Another major announcement came from Apache Shindig. Apache Shindig made gadgets open sourced. In coordination with this announcement, OpenSocial 0.7.0 introduced Gadget Specifications for developers to be able to define their gadgets using the Gadget API.
Version 0.6.0
editSecurity was a large focus in version 0.6.0. Permission controls were tightened to prevent a gadget from returning information if it is not authorized to do so. New classes were added, such as the Environment class to allow a gadget to respond differently according to its environment and the Surface class to support navigation from one surface to another. The Activities class was simplified based on developer needs and the Stream class was deprecated.[14]
Version 0.5.0
editGoogle announced the launch of OpenSocial with a pre-release of version 0.5.0. While unstable, this API introduced "various XML DTDs, Javascript interfaces and other data structures"[15] to the OpenSocial platform.
References
edit- ^ "Google Launches OpenSocial to Spread Social Applications Across the Web – News announcements – News from Google – Google". googlepress.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2015-11-23.
- ^ a b c Mark Marum (2013-01-01). "OpenSocial Specification 1.0.0 Release Notes". GitHub. Retrieved 2015-11-28.
- ^ "OpenSocial Foundation Moving Standards Work to W3C Social Web Activity". W3C. 2014-12-16. Retrieved 2014-12-17.
- ^ a b "OpenSocial Foundation Moves Standards Work to W3C Social Web Activity W3C Blog". W3C. 2014-12-16. Retrieved 2015-12-01.
- ^ a b Mark Marum (2013-01-01). "OpenSocial Specification 2.5.1 Release Notes". GitHub. Retrieved 2015-11-28.
- ^ a b Mark Marum (2013-01-01). "OpenSocial Specification 2.5.0 Release Notes". GitHub. Retrieved 2015-11-28.
- ^ a b Mark Marum (2013-01-01). "OpenSocial Specification 2.0.1 Release Notes". GitHub. Retrieved 2015-11-28.
- ^ a b Mark Marum (2013-01-01). "OpenSocial Specification 2.0.0 Release Notes". GitHub. Retrieved 2015-11-28.
- ^ a b Mark Marum (2013-01-01). "OpenSocial Specification 1.1.0 Release Notes". GitHub. Retrieved 2015-11-28.
- ^ a b Mark Marum (2013-01-01). "OpenSocial Specification 0.9.0 Release Notes". GitHub. Retrieved 2015-11-28.
- ^ a b Mark Marum (2013-01-01). "OpenSocial Specification 1.8.1 Release Notes". GitHub. Retrieved 2015-11-28.
- ^ a b Mark Marum (2013-01-01). "OpenSocial Specification 0.8.0 Release Notes". GitHub. Retrieved 2015-11-28.
- ^ a b Mark Marum (2013-01-01). "OpenSocial Specification 0.7.0 Release Notes". GitHub. Retrieved 2015-11-28.
- ^ a b Mark Marum (2013-01-01). "OpenSocial Specification 0.6.0 Release Notes". GitHub. Retrieved 2015-11-28.
- ^ a b Mark Hopkins (2007-11-09). "OpenSocial Container Pre-Release". Mashable. Retrieved 2015-11-28.