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Libwww is an early World Wide Web software library providing core functions for web browsers, implementing HTML, HTTP, and other technologies. Tim Berners-Lee, at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), released libwww (then also called the Common Library) in late 1992, comprising reusable code from the first browsers (WorldWideWeb and Line Mode Browser). Libwww was relied upon by the then popular browser Mosaic. By 1997, interest in libwww declined, and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which took over from CERN, reduced its commitment to the project. Later, the purpose of libwww was redefined to be "a testbed for protocol experiments"; in that role it was maintained for the benefit of the W3C's web standards-promoting browser Amaya. Active development of libwww stopped in 2000. libcurl is considered to be a modern replacement for libwww. In 1991 and 1992, Tim Berners-Lee and a student at CERN named Jean-François Groff rewrote various components of the original WorldWideWeb browser for the NeXTstep operating system in portable C code, in order to demonstrate the potential of the World Wide Web. In the beginning, libwww was referred to as the Common Library and was not available as a separate product. Before becoming generally available, libwww was integrated in the CERN program library (CERNLIB). In July 1992 the library was ported to DECnet. In the May 1993 World Wide Web Newsletter Berners-Lee announced that the Common Library was now called libwww and was licensed as public domain to encourage the development of web browsers. He initially considered releasing the software under the GNU General Public License, rather than into the public domain, but decided against it due to concerns that large corporations such as IBM would be deterred from using it by the restrictions of the GPL. The rapid early development of the library caused Robert Cailliau problems when integrating it into his MacWWW browser. From February 1994 to July 1999 (versions 2.17 to 5.2.

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