[eCa]

IIUC, the open source app uses an unofficial/private api to communicate with the city’s application backend? Regardless of anything leading to the open source app being built, I struggle to take their side here.

Looking at the code, it appears that they authenticate against the api? So it’s a third-party app using an api, against the first-party’s expressed wishes, to read and/or manipulate student data?[1]

Of course the city will defend against that.

[1] Correct me if I’m wrong here.

[lolinder]

I understand the same, but remember that this is a city government that built this app, not a private company. The app belongs, by rights, to the taxpayers who funded it, and for the city (or their contractors) to be actively working to prevent them from building a better version of it is clearly wrong. Publicly-funded applications should be required to be open source (barring national security concerns), but at the very least they shouldn't actively prevent open alternatives.

[dvdhnt]

I feel like this is no different than using multiple web browsers to access my own generated content.

The app uses your device, your electricity, and your credentials. The API is built using your tax money.

I don’t see a problem.

[reader_mode]

>Of course the city will defend against that.

Why would that be a given.

I can understand it in scenarios where it messes up a monetisation strategy - but this bein publicly funded it's the opposite of what I'd expect.

[utrechtsouth]

It looks like users use a different frontend than the one provided by the government. So it's users changing their own data.

So that leaves a defense against... their own users? Makes no sense.

Plus the tax payers funded the platform so it's not like the government has any legitimate interest in protecting the product itself like a private business might.