diff --git a/docs/HISTORY b/docs/HISTORY new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b8601230d --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/HISTORY @@ -0,0 +1,110 @@ + _ _ ____ _ + ___| | | | _ \| | + / __| | | | |_) | | + | (__| |_| | _ <| |___ + \___|\___/|_| \_\_____| + + How cURL Become Like This + + +In the second half of 1997, Daniel Stenberg came up with the idea to make +currency-exchange calculations available to Internet Relay Chat (IRC) +users. All the necessary data are published on the Web; he just needed to +automate their retrieval. + +Daniel simply adopted an existing command-line open-source tool, httpget, that +Brazilian Rafael Sagula had written. After a few minor adjustments, it did +just what he needed. + +Soon, he found currencies on a GOPHER site, so support for that had to go in, +and not before long FTP download support was added as well. The name of the +project was changed to urlget to better fit what it actually did now, since +the http-only days were already passed. + +The project slowly grew bigger. When upload capabilities were added and the +name once again was misleading, a second name change was made and on March 20, +1998 curl 4 was released. (The version numbering from the previous names were +kept.) + +(Unrelated to this project a company called Curl Corporation filed a US +trademark on the name "CURL" on May 18 1998. That company had then already +registered the curl.com domain back in November of the previous year. All this +was much later brought into the lights.) + +SSL support was added, powered by the SSLeay library. + +August 1998, added project curl to freshmeat.net. + +October 1998, with the curl 4.9 release and the introduction of cookie +support, curl was no longer released under the GPL license. Now we're at 4000 +lines of code, we switched over to the MPL license to restrict the effects of +"copyleft". + +November 1998, configure script and reported successful compiles on several +major operating systems. The never-quite-understood -F option was added and +curl could now simulate quite a lot of a browser. + +Curl 5 was released in December 1998 and introduced the first ever curl man +page. People started making Linux RPM packages out of it. + +January 1999, DICT support added. + +OpenSSL took over where SSLeay was abandoned. + +May 1999, first Debian package. + +August 1999, LDAP:// and FILE:// support added. The curl web site gets 1300 +visits daily. + +Released curl 6.0 in September. 15000 lines of code. + +December 28 1999, added project to Sourceforge and started using its services +for managing the project. + +Spring 2000, major internal overhaul to provide a suitable library interface. +The first non-beta release was named 7.1 and arrived in August. This offered +the easy interface and turned out to be the beginning of actually getting +other software and programs to get based on and powered by libcurl. Almost +20000 lines of code. + +August 2000, the curl web site gets 4000 visits daily. + +The PHP guys adopted libcurl already the same month, when the first ever third +party libcurl binding showed up. CURL has been a supported module in PHP since +the release of PHP 4.0.2. This would soon get followers. More than 16 +different bindings exist at the time of this writing. + +September 2000, kerberos4 support was added. + +In November 2000 started the work on a test suite for curl. It was later +re-written from scratch again. + +January 2001, Daniel released curl 7.5.2 under a new license again: MIT (or +MPL). The MIT license is extremely liberal and can be used combined with GPL +in other projects. This would finally put an end to the "complaints" from +people involved in GPLed projects that previously were prohibited from using +libcurl while it was released under MPL only. (Due to the fact that MPL is +deemed "GPL incompatible".) + +curl supports HTTP 1.1 starting with the release of 7.7, March 22 2001. This +also introduced libcurl's ability to do persistent connections. 24000 lines of +code. + +August 2001. curl is bundled in Mac OS X, 10.1. It was already becoming more +and more of a standard utility of Linux distributions and a regular in the BSD +ports collections. The curl web site gets 8000 visits daily. Curl Corporation +contacted Daniel to discuss "the name issue". After Daniel's reply, they have +never since got in touch again. + +September 2001, libcurl 7.9 introduces cookie jar and curl_formadd(). During +the forthcoming 7.9.x releases, we introduced the multi interface slowly and +without much whistles. + +June 2002, the curl web site gets 13000 visits daily. curl and libcurl is +35000 lines of code. Reported successful compiles on more than 40 combinations +of CPUs and operating systems. + +To estimate number of users of the curl tool or libcurl library is next to +impossible. Around 5000 downloaded packages each week from the main site gives +a hint, but the packages are mirrored extensively, bundled with numerous OS +distributions and otherwise retrieved as part of other software. diff --git a/docs/Makefile.am b/docs/Makefile.am index 9a507f6fb..7664079a7 100644 --- a/docs/Makefile.am +++ b/docs/Makefile.am @@ -16,7 +16,8 @@ SUBDIRS = examples libcurl EXTRA_DIST = MANUAL BUGS CONTRIBUTE FAQ FEATURES INTERNALS \ README.win32 RESOURCES TODO TheArtOfHttpScripting THANKS \ - VERSIONS KNOWN_BUGS BINDINGS $(man_MANS) $(HTMLPAGES) + VERSIONS KNOWN_BUGS BINDINGS $(man_MANS) $(HTMLPAGES) \ + HISTORY MAN2HTML= gnroff -man $< | man2html >$@