The whois system changed when the ICANN cabal assumed control of the domain registration system on 1 December 1999. The whois clients in use at that time stopped working when the new system was deployed. That's why I wrote this one.

Over time BW Whois evolved into the most full-featured whois client available providing features like a self-detecting CGI mode and SQL database caching, for those who need such features, while still maintaining a simple command-line interface for those who just need that.