Re: Adopting wcurl into the curl project?

On Sat, 3 Aug 2024, Daniel Stenberg via curl-users wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I would like to offer the wcurl tool to get adopted into the curl project as 
> a new separate tool for the project to manage and offer to the world. If the 
> maintainers and team behind it approve and think this is a good idea of 
> course.

curl is one of a tiny handful of programs that are available in the 
default install of essentially all widely used systems - Windows, OSX, 
Linux and FreeBSD.  I can reference curl in a script knowing that all my 
users will have it installed, and I won't need me to tutor them to install 
it. wcurl is unlikely to be present in a default install of (m)any of 
these for decades, if ever.

I know wcurl will be available for free but many users are unable to 
install software, either because of their employer's rules, their own 
ignorance or simple inertia. The subscribers to this mailing list are not 
typical users. A 2-character option for the same function is good enough 
and much more important, is likely to be available to the majority of 
users.

One thought if you do go ahead with this. Instead of a new program, why 
not just have curl check the name by which it was called? If it was called 
as wget, act like wget. Then users wouldn't need an additional program, 
just a hard link or at worst a simple copy of the already installed curl 
binary. This also minimizes the ongoing effort of maintaining two 
packages.

There is no need to be jealous of wget - because of curl's greater 
availability it is the package that new users will pick up. Only existing 
users of wget will continue to use wget (including myself), and they will 
be an increasingly small share.

I hope no one interprets this a a criticism of wget - it is a great 
program. To me, the most important reason I prefer curl is its wider 
availability. That is a pretty important feature. It may be a consequence 
of curl's greater coverage, but it is still a feature to be proud of.

The other widely available programs are ssh and a number of tiny utilities 
such as cd, ping, and pwd. nslookup no longer comes with Linux, ftp no 
longer comes with Windows.  curl is in a very exclusive club.

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