About WebFetch

WebFetch is a set of Perl5 modules that provide a framework for retrieving information from local files and/or the web for display on the web or export to other sites. Its use is oriented around periodically automatically updated information on a web server.

For display on your own site, WebFetch can import from: Freshmeat Slashdot (text and XML modes) LinuxToday Yahoo Business News CNN CNet News.Com Segfault comp.os.linux.announce moderator archive Debian GNU/Linux Project News any site running WebFetch::SiteNews ...or anything else you write a WebFetch import module for. Just get the file from the URL advertised by the news provider.

For others to display on their sites, WebFetch can export your news to: any web site running WebFetch::General, any desktop running EHeadlines (headlines tool for Enlightenment window manager, see the WebFetch/EHeadlines interoperability announcement.) Netscape's MyNetscape portal ...or anything else you write a WebFetch export module for. Just have WebFetch make the files, then tell your news recipients where to get it on your web server. (Note: WebFetch's "exports" are done by placing a file where it can be picked up on your web server.)

How to make a WebFetch-compatible news ticker or headlines tool:
As some Linux User Groups and other organizations adopt WebFetch for their news distribution, you can also use it to import news into other displays. (i.e. tickers) See the documentations for the WebFetch::General format and see the example file for WebFetch News.

WebFetch 0.10 introduced the WebFetch Embedding API that allows you to embed WebFetch into other Perl programs.

The WebFetch Project would like to acknowledge its volunteers and sponsors:

Module authors

Jamie Heilman
Chuck Ritter
Gregory S. Youngblood
Ian Kluft

Web server co-location

Dave Zarzycki, Cupertino, California
Wallis International Networking Services, Sunnyvale, California
InReach Internet, Stockton, California

CVS server, bug database

SourceForge (VA Linux Systems), Sunnyvale, California

WebFetch.org domain name services

Thunder.Net Communications, San Jose, California
Monkey Lives (Steve Loomis), San Jose, California

• The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) and its many mirror sites contain current copies of WebFetch which can be downloaded and installed via Perl's "CPAN" module and "cpan" command.
• University of Winnipeg's CPAN documentation site displays documentation from all Perl modules in the CPAN, including WebFetch.
• WebFetch is listed at Freshmeat's "AppIndex".
• Slashdot's "code" page lists WebFetch first among the applications that can display their headlines.
• The lib-www-perl Home Page lists WebFetch among the software that uses it.

Where did the name "WebFetch" come from?
Explanation from Ian Kluft, the original author of WebFetch...

Originally when I submitted this set of Perl modules for inclusion in the Perl5 module registry and CPAN, I suggested that this new sub-hierarchy of modules might fit in the overall module hierarchy as WWW::Fetch::*. The Perl module namespace coordinators thought otherwise, with concern that the WWW::* hierarchy was becoming overloaded, and suggested "WebFetch". I was surprised but pleased that they, in effect, promoted this project to the top level of the Perl module hierarchy.

With their suggestion in hand, I first checked for other projects that might already be using the name. There was no registered or pending trademark on the name at the US Patent and Trademark Office web site.

An Australian company called Agent.com had registered a webfetch.com domain. But it looked like their site hadn't been updated since 1997. (Actually, it has looked abandoned for quite a while.) And they refer to their software as "Fetch", not "WebFetch".

So no conflict there... And perusals of web searches showed that there have been other abandoned uses of the name "WebFetch" over recent years, but nothing active. So it was determined to be a safe name for this project.

After The WebFetch Project had been using the name for months, I ran across another free software "webfetch" script by Tony Aiuto. It appears to be a clever HTTP download script in Perl which allows just about everything (including the browser type you want to impersonate :-) to be specified on the command line.

A 1994 example Perl program by Matthew Gray was called webfetch.pl.

As for our project, we've got the webfetch.org domain, the WebFetch entry at Freshmeat's "AppIndex", and a lot of releases under this name. So we're sticking with it now... :-)