1. A method for controlling a manner in which a software application accesses an application programming interface (API), wherein the software application executes on a computing device and the API is available on the computing device, and the method comprises: receiving, from the software application executing on the computing device, a request to access the API; extracting, from the API, first license information that identifies whether all software applications executing on the computing device are permitted to access the API; identifying, based on the first license information, that not all software applications executing on the computing device are permitted to access the API; and in response to identifying: extracting, from the software application, second license information that identifies whether the software application is permitted to access the API, determining, based on the second license information, that the software application is permitted to access the API, and in response to determining: granting the software application access to the API.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the API comprises a toolkit, a framework, a runtime library, a dynamic link library, or an applet, and the request to access the API is generated by a calling function or an object associated with the software application.