xMule (short for "

X11 The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...

Mule") is a discontinued

free Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procur ...

client for the eDonkey

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer n ...

file sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include r ...

network intended to bring it to virtually all the major

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

platforms, with a particular emphasis on

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

. xMule was coded in

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

using

wxWidgets wxWidgets (formerly wxWindows) is a widget toolkit and tools library for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for cross-platform applications. wxWidgets enables a program's GUI code to compile and run on several computer platforms with mini ...

and released under

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...

v2. xMule is a fork of

lMule lMule (short for "Linux Mule") was an early attempt to bring an eMule-like client to Linux started in January 2003 by Timo Kujala, who ported all eMule code to Linux by himself. Alternative applications were at the time command line applications ...

, itself a

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...

eMule eMule is a free peer-to-peer file sharing application for Microsoft Windows. Started in May 2002 as an alternative to eDonkey2000, eMule now connects to both the eDonkey network and the Kad network. The distinguishing features of eMule are ...

aMule aMule is a free peer-to-peer file sharing utility that works with the eDonkey network and the Kad network, offering similar features to eMule and adding others such as GeoIP (country flags). On August 18, 2003 it was forked from the xMule sou ...

is a fork of xMule.

History

In January 2003,

started as an

v0.26d port for

. In June 2003, due to differences between the developers and the hijacking of lMule's official website by one contributor,

's fork, xMule, was created. Unlike eMule, which uses MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes), xMule used

for the

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

, therefore could run on many platforms. It fully supported

and *BSD, and was intended to support

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

and

MacOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

. On 17 August 2003, Ted R. Smith, xMule's only maintainer who lived in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

at the time, became involved in a legal battle due to his role in the development of xMule. His personal Internet connection was shut down. He appeared to be subpoenaed by the government on behalf of the

Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

(RIAA) for

Digital Millennium Copyright Act The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or s ...

(DMCA) related issue. On 18 August 2003, shortly after the incident involving Ted R. Smith,

was forked from the xMule source code due to major disagreements. aMule's official website stated that "relations between the two projects are sadly in a rather sorry state", whereas xMule's stated that "aMule is geared more towards the present end-user, while xMule is more about long-term extensibility and viability", and drew comparisons to the different coding philosophies behind

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Microsoft Wind ...

and

Mozilla Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, wi ...

. xMule's final release was 1.13.7 RC1 in September 2006. Since 18 January 2009, a note on the official website of xMule, written by its developer, Avi Vahl, officially announced the discontinuation of xMule's development. To justify the decision, Avi Vahl claimed that eMule was dead and the future of

was the BitTorrent protocol. The official xMule website encouraged users to move to the BitTorrent network or use aMule. aMule has added the support for Windows and MacOS.

References

External links

* Official website (now unaccessible): www.xmule.ws * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Xmule Free file sharing software EDonkey Clients for Linux File sharing software that uses wxWidgets X Window programs Discontinued software Software forks 2003 software