This day in age, everyone is talking about open source. API can be thought of as open source, but there are some differences.<p>You often have to rely on others to perform functions that you aren’t able or permitted to perform, like say, opening a bank account or dunking if you’re a playmaker in basketball. It’s the same situation with virtually every software out there. It needs to put in a request to other software to perform actions it can’t accomplish. An alley-oop pass, if you will.