1curl the next few years - perhaps
2=================================
3
4Roadmap of things Daniel Stenberg and Steve Holme want to work on next. It is
5intended to serve as a guideline for others for information, feedback and
6possible participation.
7
8HTTP/2
9------
10
11Improve performance. Measurements and tests have shown that in several cases
12doing transfers over HTTP/2 can be notably slower than the same transfer done
13over HTTP/1. Some of that difference can be attributed the inefficient window
14size handling currently in use but there are probably more to be learned and
15worked on to optimize this.
16
17QUIC
18----
19
20The standardization process of QUIC has been taken to the IETF and can be
21followed on the [IETF QUIC Mailing
22list](https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/quic). I'd like us to get on the
23bandwagon. Ideally, this would be done with a separate library/project to
24handle the binary/framing layer in a similar fashion to how HTTP/2 is
25implemented. This, to allow other projects to benefit from the work and to
26thus broaden the interest and chance of others to participate.
27
28TLS 1.3
29-------
30
31The new version of the TLS protocol is in the pipeline and will soon start to
32get used out in the wild. It offers some new interesting features and will
33need the TLS libraries to adapt and quite likely provide additional or
34modified APIs. libcurl needs to adapt accordingly.
35
36
37HTTP cookies
38------------
39
40Two cookie drafts have been adopted by the httpwg in IETF and we should
41support them as the popular browsers will as well:
42
43[Deprecate modification of 'secure' cookies from non-secure
44origins](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-httpbis-cookie-alone-00)
45
46[Cookie Prefixes](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-httpbis-cookie-prefixes-00)
47
48[Firefox bug report about secure cookies](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=976073)
49
50SRV records
51-----------
52
53How to find services for specific domains/hosts.
54
55HTTPS to proxy
56--------------
57
58To avoid network traffic to/from the proxy getting snooped on. There's a git
59branch in the public git repository for this that we need to make sure works
60for all TLS backends and then merge!
61
62curl_formadd()
63--------------
64
65make sure there's an easy handle passed in to `curl_formadd()`,
66`curl_formget()` and `curl_formfree()` by adding replacement functions and
67deprecating the old ones to allow custom mallocs and more
68
69Third-party SASL
70----------------
71
72Add support for third-party SASL libraries such as Cyrus SASL.
73
74SASL authentication in LDAP
75---------------------------
76
77...
78
79Simplify the SMTP email
80-----------------------
81
82Simplify the SMTP email interface so that programmers don't have to
83construct the body of an email that contains all the headers, alternative
84content, images and attachments - maintain raw interface so that
85programmers that want to do this can
86
87email capabilities
88------------------
89
90Allow the email protocols to return the capabilities before
91authenticating. This will allow an application to decide on the best
92authentication mechanism
93
94Win32 pthreads
95--------------
96
97Allow Windows threading model to be replaced by Win32 pthreads port
98
99dynamic buffer size
100-------------------
101
102Implement a dynamic buffer size to allow SFTP to use much larger buffers and
103possibly allow the size to be customizable by applications. Use less memory
104when handles are not in use?
105
106New stuff - curl
107----------------
108
1091. Embed a language interpreter (lua?). For that middle ground where curl
110   isn’t enough and a libcurl binding feels “too much”. Build-time conditional
111   of course.
112
1132. Simplify the SMTP command line so that the headers and multi-part content
114   don't have to be constructed before calling curl
115
116Improve
117-------
118
1191. build for windows (considered hard by many users)
120
1212. curl -h output (considered overwhelming to users)
122
1233. we have > 170 command line options, is there a way to redo things to
124   simplify or improve the situation as we are likely to keep adding
125   features/options in the future too
126
1274. docs (considered "bad" by users but how do we make it better?)
128
129  - split up curl.1
130
1315. authentication framework (consider merging HTTP and SASL authentication to
132   give one API for protocols to call)
133
1346. Perform some of the clean up from the TODO document, removing old
135   definitions and such like that are currently earmarked to be removed years
136   ago
137
138Remove
139------
140
1411. makefile.vc files as there is no point in maintaining two sets of Windows
142   makefiles. Note: These are currently being used by the Windows autobuilds
143