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I'm in the prototyping phase for a medium size solution built upon the current Stack Overflow API. The recent discovery of the lack of a particular feature I took for granted (see Why does the API lack (proper) HTTP cache control headers?) requires me to redesign parts or the current architecture.

In order to properly judge the viability of different approaches I'd benefit from the details and possible peculiarities of the "API Terms of Service" as referred to from the legal pages (see section 2. 'Network Content', paragraph 2).

Neither site nor Google search surfaced this document, so presumably it's not available yet? If so, do you have a rough time frame when to expect it? Thanks much!

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1 Answer 1

Our current guidelines for use of the API can be found in this post.

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Thanks, that's helpful already, though it doesn't qualify as "API Terms of Service", or does it? I'd be extremely pleased to get this surprisingly lightweight approach confirmed but wording/phrasing does matter here: I've been expecting something more 'legalish' like e.g. Google Maps/Google Earth APIs Terms of Service for an extensive/extreme example. Yeah, annoying, but stuff like that is implied once you put an Inc. behind your company name, I'm afraid ;) –  Steffen Opel Jul 9 '10 at 11:42
@Steffen, yup. It takes a brave or foolish man to invest time/money and make business and technical decisions based on a non-existent TOS, err, an informal guidance post. It is getting to be about the time to publish some binding legal documents if consumption of the api is to not be limited to hobbyists. –  Sky Sanders Jul 25 '10 at 15:33
@code - I'm struggling with this indeed and brave or foolish pretty much sums up the comments of colleagues of mine I'm trying to talk into considering such investments. I still think that the Stack Exchange platform has a huge potential of actually achieving the ambitious goals, making an early investment a potentially smart move, but the current focus on hobbyists is a huge impediment and the feedback I received from 3rd parties about the API as well as the perceived 'support quality' is not exactly encouraging either ... –  Steffen Opel Jul 27 '10 at 10:28

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