Introduction

Since the release of Fedora 4.0, Fedora has provided a robust REST-API based primarily on the Linked Data Platform (LDP) as the pattern for resource management operations (Create, Read, Update, and Delete; or CRUD). Over time, the other services provided by the API (versoning, authorization, fixity, and messaging) have been aligned with other relevant web standards. However, these services and standards were subject to change, and the API was not versioned separately from the underlying implementation, so there was no clear way to distinguish between API changes and software updates without reading detailed release notes. The API specification changes this paradigm such that the services Fedora offers and the standards with which it complies are now formally documented and versioned separately from the underlying application. This provides stability and predictability for clients, while also unlocking the potential to replace the underlying application with a different implementation that satisfies different use cases. This approach may also provide benefits for repository migrations because tools can be written against the API, which will change less often than the software application.

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