Dump of http://developer.linkedin.com/forum/retrieve-all-positions-profile-including-past-ones#comment-20856

betrayed by linkedin

Dear Mr. Mohager:

I am not sure if you realize, but this change just "pulled the rug" from under
our feet unbeknownst to us. We feel completely blind-sighted, disappointed, and
frankly bullied by a company that we considered our role model and used to
admire. We were one of your earliest supporters, and now we feel betrayed. We
are an early stage company, and have invested our own, investors' and clients'
money in building two LinkedIn integrated applications centered around a
use-case that requires for users to have access to their own contacts' current
and past positions. Now, as we are about to launch, we realize that all that
effort and money has been spent in vain? If there is still a principle of right
and wrong in this world, then breaking your promises as a company in this manner
is completely wrong. It breaches the spirit of trust that LinkedIn promotes
toward developers and its community of users. It diminishes the good will with
those, on whose shoulders LinkedIn stands on.

Over the past year, we spent significant resources and time building two
applications while counting on the API documentation, sample code and online
resources. After a year of development, today, as we were finalizing for launch,
we realized that positions don't show as expected with utter disbelief. For the
whole time, we were consulting the Apigee console
(https://apigee.com/console/linkedin) with an expectation that our API calls
will yield similar results, which to this day shows current _and_ past positions
for 1st degree connections. To this day, the API documentation states that the
positions field in the Basic Profile provide "A collection of positions a member
_has had_." (https://developer.linkedin.com/documents/profile-fields#profile).
There was never any indication that you would be making this change to the API.
We took your word, followed your example, invested heavily in enhancing our
joint customers' experience, and in turn we are now left "holding the bag". We
were one of your first developers, but by fluke we didn't create an application
API key before the August 6, 2012 deadline, which was never communicated in
advance. We believed that we could count on the documentation and Apigee
examples to build the apps, without worrying about registering the App in time
to "lock in" the functionality. We were obviously mislead. We believed that when
LinkedIn versions its API (http://api.linkedin.com/v1/people/~/connections), it
makes a promise for backwards compatibility for users and predictability for
developers. We were obviously mislead. We believed in you, and in return paid a
heavy price.

Imagine how many developers are counting on your documentation to stay
consistent, and building apps by following your example. With such arbitrary
moves, each of your developers could end up in the same position as us. But the
development community is very connected, we have a sense of right and wrong, we
work hard to do good, and when we feel bullied and betrayed, we don't forget.

Sincerely,
Sandro