Episode 185: Daniel Stenberg on the cURL project

Guest Daniel Stenberg Panelists Richard Littauer | Leslie Hawthorne
Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk
about sustaining open source for the long haul. On this episode,
Richard and Leslie are super excited to have as their guest, Daniel
Stenberg, Lead Developer of the cURL project. Today, Daniel shares
his journey of how he got involved with cURL, its development over
the years, the community behind it, and funding the development.
Our conversation also touches on the upcoming release of cURL, the
future of cURL, Daniel’s desire to grow the project, the benefits
of people to collaborate with and provide support, and the role of
cURL in the broader landscape of internet protocols and digital
infrastructure. Press download to hear more! [00:01:24] Daniel
shares the story of how he became involved with the cURL project.
[00:03:55] We hear about the community behind cURL and the number
of maintainers involved. He mentions having over 1,100 commit
authors in the current repository. [00:05:29] The discussion shifts
to funding cURL’s development. He tells us for the first twenty one
years he had it as a spare time project while having a separate
job. [00:06:28] He explains the challenge monetizing a free
software project but emphasizes the value he provides to customers
in terms of support and expertise. [00:08:40] Leslie raises the
topic of Daniel’s positive and generous attitude despite giving
away free software and not always receiving equal support in
return. He explains as long as he has enough customers to sustain
his work, he remains calm and relaxed. [00:11:46] Daniel discusses
the development of his mindset and how he acquired a positive
outlook over the past 25 years. He attributes his confidence to
proven success, test cases that validate code functionality, and
feedback form the large install base of cURL. [00:12:45] Richard
asks Daniel about his plans for the future of cURL, and Daniel
expresses a desire to expand the team and highlights the benefits
of having additional people to collaborate with and provide
support. [00:13:56] Leslie takes the opportunity to promote
wolfSSL, the company Daniel collaborates with to support cURLS’s
growth and provide services to more users, and he explains why he’s
working with wolfSSL. [00:17:02] Richard raises the topic funding
individual maintainers with the broader open source ecosystem, and
Daniel acknowledges that his support contract model might not work
for all projects, as it requires a certain project size,
importance, and ecosystem. [00:19:04] Security issues, particularly
zero-day exploit is brought up, and Daniel emphasizes the
significance of security and mentions that maintaining cURL
involves devoting a considerable amount of time to fixing bugs,
addressing support questions, and handling security concerns.
[00:20:32] We hear how cURL fits into the wider landscape of
internet protocols and digital infrastructure. Daniel talks about
the importance of maintaining backward compatibility in cURL, and
how he sees cURL as a tool that enables users to transfer data over
the internet effectively. [00:22:53] We hear about Uncurled, which
is a book by Daniel. [00:24:32] Daniel tells us what many companies
would rather not say, such as companies that choose not to disclose
their support or donations to cURL. They prefer to remain anonymous
and keep their contributions private. [00:28:02] He acknowledges
that extracting significant value solely from donations can be
challenging and offering support contracts provides a way to
generate more revenue and provide additional value to companies.
[00:29:19] What’s hard for Daniel? He attributes his optimistic and
positive mindset to his personality and outlook on life, but he
also mentions facing struggles. [00:34:24] Find out where you can
follow Daniel on the web. Quotes [00:07:35] “My biggest way in is
when my customers run into a bug. So, I have this weird incentive
to not do it too good.” [00:10:32] “When you’ve been around for a
long time and you know if things go well, I can be around for a
long time further as well.” [00:21:24] “We haven’t done a breaking
change in 16 years.” [00:30:09] “The hard part is the humans, the
community, interacting with others, all the cultures, languages,
and people.” Spotlight [00:35:03] Leslie’s spotlight is The Swedish
Internet Foundation. [00:35:47] Richard’s spotlight is WC and Cat.
[00:36:10] Daniel’s spotlight is Valgrind. Links SustainOSS
(https://sustainoss.org/) SustainOSS Twitter
(https://twitter.com/SustainOSS?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
SustainOSS Discourse (https://discourse.sustainoss.org/)
podcast@sustainoss.org (mailto:podcast@sustainoss.org) SustainOSS
Mastodon (https://mastodon.social/tags/sustainoss) Richard Littauer
Twitter
(https://twitter.com/richlitt?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
Leslie Hawthorne Twitter (https://twitter.com/lhawthorn) Daniel
Stenberg Website (https://daniel.haxx.se/) Daniel Stenberg Twitter
(https://twitter.com/bagder?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
Daniel Stenberg Mastodon (https://mastodon.social/@bagder) cURL
(https://curl.se/) wolfSSL (https://www.wolfssl.com/) Uncurled
(https://un.curl.dev/) Everything curl
(https://everything.curl.dev/) The Swedish Internet Foundation
(https://internetstiftelsen.se/en/) wc (Unix)
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wc_(Unix)) Valgrind
(https://valgrind.org/) Credits Produced by Richard Littauer
(https://www.burntfen.com/) Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree
Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by DeAnn Bahr
Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Special Guest:
Daniel Stenberg.