Q:

Why does curl allow use of the file URL scheme, but not wget

This question refers to curl 7.21.4 and GNU Wget 1.13.4, I don't know if the answer is version specific.
Using the file URI scheme I can get local file using curl as such
$ curl file://localhost/Users/dave/.vimrc
contents of .vimrc

However if I try the same using wget I receive an error:
$ wget file://localhost/Users/dave/.vimrc
file://localhost/Users/dave/.vimrc: Unsupported scheme `file'

Does anyone know why this is the case?

A:

Because Wget has not been written to support file:// URLs. (It's front web page clearly states "GNU Wget is a free software package for retrieving files using HTTP, HTTPS and FTP")
Allow me to point to a little curl vs wget comparison.

