Backblaze acknowledges using curl, becomes the new largest single-shot donor(daniel.haxx.se)
daniel.haxx.se
Backblaze acknowledges using curl, becomes the new largest single-shot donor
https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2020/01/14/backblazed/
15 comments
I used libcurl 10 yeara ago in a C project and found it really difficult to use. Granted, I was young and inexperienced but the C API struck me as super baroque and strange. Does anyone else feel this way? It’s totally possible (maybe even likely) that I was just a terrible programmer though...
Backblaze CTO here....
> I found libcurl difficult to use in 'C'
Umm.... it is literally the most simple API that could possibly exist? Here are the four lines in 'C' to fetch a URL:
curl_global_init(CURL_GLOBAL_SSL); // do this once inside of "main()"
CURL ch = curl_easy_init();
curl_easy_setopt(ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://www.google.com");
int res = curl_easy_perform(ch);
I'm not sure how you could fetch a URL without initializing the library or specifying the URL?? It is like profoundly the most simple API that could possibly exist, I challenge you to specify any imagined API that is shorter or more simple or more straight-forward??!
The nice thing about the libcurl API is the above works and is the "base" concept, but if you want to specify something like a "network throttle" to be polite to other things on the network, you just start adding one extra line at a time to the above code:
curl_easy_setopt(ch, CURLOPT_MAX_SEND_SPEED_LARGE, (curl_off_t) (256 * 1024)); // 256 kbits/sec
> I found libcurl difficult to use in 'C'
Umm.... it is literally the most simple API that could possibly exist? Here are the four lines in 'C' to fetch a URL:
curl_global_init(CURL_GLOBAL_SSL); // do this once inside of "main()"
CURL ch = curl_easy_init();
curl_easy_setopt(ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://www.google.com");
int res = curl_easy_perform(ch);
I'm not sure how you could fetch a URL without initializing the library or specifying the URL?? It is like profoundly the most simple API that could possibly exist, I challenge you to specify any imagined API that is shorter or more simple or more straight-forward??!
The nice thing about the libcurl API is the above works and is the "base" concept, but if you want to specify something like a "network throttle" to be polite to other things on the network, you just start adding one extra line at a time to the above code:
curl_easy_setopt(ch, CURLOPT_MAX_SEND_SPEED_LARGE, (curl_off_t) (256 * 1024)); // 256 kbits/sec
I founded an online load testing company called Load Impact, and we have also used libcurl since way back. I agree the API is very simple, and libcurl is a very reliable and performant piece of software. Daniel is also extremely helpful while not charging a penny for all the time he puts in.
It's a great idea, this "paying back" accumulated moral debt (or whatever you'd like to call it) to open source developers whose software you've built a successful business on. Applauds to you, and to Backblaze!
I am not running Load Impact anymore, but will see if we can follow Backblaze's lead here and do something similar.
It's a great idea, this "paying back" accumulated moral debt (or whatever you'd like to call it) to open source developers whose software you've built a successful business on. Applauds to you, and to Backblaze!
I am not running Load Impact anymore, but will see if we can follow Backblaze's lead here and do something similar.
Am I the only one who thinks this amount is very small?
Considering tens of thousands of paying users that use a service which would not function if it wasn't for libcurl, I was expecting nothing short of 50k$
Considering tens of thousands of paying users that use a service which would not function if it wasn't for libcurl, I was expecting nothing short of 50k$
libcurl is an important library used in their product, but there's tons of other libraries that they also use so it would not make sense to pay hundreds of dollars per month for every possible open source library being used.
How much have you personally paid for MIT licensed software you use?
$15.6k is generous considering the license requires them to pay $0. If the author of libcurl wanted to profit from it, then he wouldn’t have picked a license that allows it to be used for free with basically no restrictions.
Donation to the sum of 15,600 US dollars. From the article:
"Backblaze was started in my living room on Jan 15, 2007 (13 years ago tomorrow) and that represents $100/month for every month Backblaze has depended on libcurl back to the beginning." -- Brian Wilson, CTO of Backblaze
Very good solution.
Very good solution.
I wonder if they'll commit to $100/mo going forward... After all, they're still using it!
Yev here -> We love open source (our erasure coding, storage pods, other stuff is all out there) and after we got his email we did realized our error and wanted to make things right with Daniel and libcurl, it seemed like the fair thing to do!
well it's good what libcurl and the curl developer did.
libcurl is so widespread that it's sometimes not easy to figure out that the library your using does use libcurl.
I mean who checks every library (even core libraries) if it uses an mit licensed product. most people probably do not. btw. .net core uses libcurl on linux which means that every product deployed to linux with dotnet needs to acknowledge it.
I mean who checks every library (even core libraries) if it uses an mit licensed product. most people probably do not. btw. .net core uses libcurl on linux which means that every product deployed to linux with dotnet needs to acknowledge it.