--- title: Every Specification Is A Land Grab | daily.dev description: Kin Lane argues that technical specifications function as economic land grabs: whoever defines a format shapes tooling, tutorials, and industry defaults,... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/every-specification-is-a-land-grab-cvm2rs5jx twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Every Specification Is A Land Grab | daily.dev og:description: Kin Lane argues that technical specifications function as economic land grabs: whoever defines a format shapes tooling, tutorials, and industry defaults,... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/every-specification-is-a-land-grab-cvm2rs5jx og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/Cvm2Rs5JX.png og:image:alt: Every Specification Is A Land Grab og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Every Specification Is A Land Grab **[API Evangelist](https://daily.dev/sources/apievangelist)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Kin Lane argues that technical specifications function as economic land grabs: whoever defines a format shapes tooling, tutorials, and industry defaults, acquiring valuable influence just by writing a document and getting adoption. He points to OpenAPI and MCP as examples where genuine investment coincided with self-interested ecosystem control. He then applies this frame to his own work on the Spectral ruleset format, which underpins API governance tooling but has never been formally claimed as a standalone specification. He commits to claiming it openly, honestly, and communicatively, then ceding it to a neutral, multi-stakeholder governance model with a license that prevents commercial capture, arguing this is the only way to avoid a fragmented, vendor-enclosed outcome. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The Volatile and Selfish API Specification Landscape](https://daily.dev/posts/the-volatile-and-selfish-api-specification-landscape-eaj13bymj) · API Evangelist · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Start by Mapping Your API Landscape](https://daily.dev/posts/start-by-mapping-your-api-landscape-seqr7ejtm) · API Evangelist · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Tool Is One Implementation Among Many](https://daily.dev/posts/the-tool-is-one-implementation-among-many-mlukcrveo) · API Evangelist · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Swagger Was A Config File Until We Made It A Format](https://daily.dev/posts/swagger-was-a-config-file-until-we-made-it-a-format-jovsivi1b) · API Evangelist · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Promise of a New Specification](https://daily.dev/posts/the-promise-of-a-new-specification-asag0amrm) · API Evangelist · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#open-source](https://daily.dev/tags/open-source), [#mcp](https://daily.dev/tags/mcp), [#openapi](https://daily.dev/tags/openapi) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/every-specification-is-a-land-grab-cvm2rs5jx) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Every Specification Is A Land Grab","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/every-specification-is-a-land-grab-cvm2rs5jx","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/every-specification-is-a-land-grab-cvm2rs5jx"},"datePublished":"2026-09-02T09:53:32.272Z","dateModified":"2026-09-02T09:58:06.698Z","description":"Kin Lane argues that technical specifications function as economic land grabs: whoever defines a format shapes tooling, tutorials, and industry defaults,...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/444b9a16d5a96cf35b5e59d166e16b26?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/444b9a16d5a96cf35b5e59d166e16b26?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"API Evangelist","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"API Evangelist","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/a36244ae67bc4f41a605f780267ecb5f","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/apievangelist"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/every-specification-is-a-land-grab-cvm2rs5jx","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"open-source,mcp,openapi","timeRequired":"PT5M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"API Evangelist","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/apievangelist"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Every Specification Is A Land Grab"}]} ```