I suggest an improvement so that the variable $wgHTTPProxy - which is needed for curl calls for example for uploading files from external urls - is initialized from environement variable $http_proxy (if present).
Diff/Patch follows
Version: 1.16.x
Severity: normal
URL: http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/phase3/includes/HttpFunctions.php?view=markup