WURFL

WURFL (Wireless Universal Resource FiLe) is a set of proprietary application programming interfaces (APIs) and an XML configuration file which contains information about device capabilities and features for a variety of mobile devices, focused on mobile device detection. Until version 2.2, WURFL was released under an "open source / public domain" license. Prior to version 2.2, device information was contributed by developers around the world and the WURFL was updated frequently, reflecting new wireless devices coming on the market. In June 2011, the founder of the WURFL project, Luca Passani, and Steve Kamerman, the author of Tera-WURFL, a popular PHP WURFL API, formed ScientiaMobile, Inc to provide commercial mobile device detection support and services using WURFL. As of August 30, 2011, the ScientiaMobile WURFL APIs are licensed under a dual-license model, using the AGPL license for non-commercial use and a proprietary commercial license. The current version of the WURFL database itself is no longer open source.

There have been several approaches to this problem, including developing very primitive content and hoping it works on a variety of devices, limiting support to a small subset of devices or bypassing the browser solution altogether and developing a Java ME or BREW client application.

WURFL solves this by allowing development of content pages using abstractions of page elements (buttons, links and textboxes for example). At run time, these are converted to the appropriate, specific markup types for each device. In addition, the developer can specify other content decisions be made at runtime based on device specific capabilities and features (which are all in the WURFL).

In March 2012, ScientiaMobile has announced the launch of the WURFL Cloud. While the WURFL Cloud is a paid service, a free offer is made available to hobbyists and micro-companies for use on mobile sites with limited traffic. Currently, the WURFL Cloud supports Java, Microsoft .NET, PHP, Ruby, Python, Node.js and the Perl programming languages

In October 2012, ScientiaMobile has announced the availability of a C++ API, an Apache module, an NGINX module and Varnish Cache module. Differently from other WURFL APIs, the C++ API and the modules are distributed commercially exclusively. Several popular Linux distribution are supported through RPM and DEB packages.

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