giFT

This article is about the filesharing computer software giFT. For other uses, see Gift (disambiguation).

giFT

Developer(s)	jasta
Initial release	?
Written in	C
Platform	Cross-platform
Available in	English
Type	Peer to peer
License	GNU GPL
Website	http://gift.sf.net/

giFT Internet File Transfer (giFT) is a computer software daemon that allows several file sharing protocols to be used with a simple client having a graphical user interface (GUI). The client dynamically loads plugins implementing the protocols, as they are required. The protocols are:

• Stable
  • OpenFT, giFT's own file sharing protocol
  • Gnutella (used by LimeWire, Shareaza)
  • Ares Galaxy
  • Turtle F2F
• Beta version
  • FastTrack (used by Kazaa). The giFT plugin is giFT-FastTrack.
• Alpha version
  • OpenNap
  • eDonkey
  • Soulseek

The clients communicate with the giFT process using a lightweight network protocol; the protocol code is completely abstracted from the user interface. There are already several giFT GUI front-ends for Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh, and Unix-like operating systems.

The name giFT is a recursive acronym.

giFT is written using relatively cross-platform C code.

giFT currently lacks unicode support included, and it is impossible to share files with characters such as "ø","ä", "å", "é", "è", "ó", "ö", "ù", "ü" in their names.^{[citation needed]}

giFT (and other multi-protocol implemenations) lacks many features needed to use the Gnutella network effectively.

OpenFT protocol

giFT's sibling project is OpenFT, a peer-to-peer file sharing network protocol that has 'search' nodes and 'index' supernodes in addition to common nodes. According to the giFT documentation:

Search nodes handle search requests. They search the filelists their CHILD (common) nodes submitted to them. These nodes must have a capable Internet connection and at least 128M RAM. A modern processor is highly recommended as well.

and

INDEX nodes keep lists of available search nodes, collect statistics, and try to maintain the structure of the network.

giFT front-ends

Name	Platform
Epicea	Microsoft Windows
giFTcurs	Unix-like; officially supported UI
Apollon	Unix-like/KDE
FilePipe	Microsoft Windows
giFToxic	Unix-like/GTK
giFTui [1]	Unix-like/GTK
giFTwin32 [2]	Microsoft Windows
KCeasy	Microsoft Windows
Poisoned	Mac OS X
giFTMui [3]	AmigaOS

See also

• MLDonkey

References

• Marcus Bergner, FastTrack chapter in his MS Thesis "Improving Performance of Modern Peer-to-peer Services", 10 June 2003, Umea University, chapter "discusses the FastTrack protocol used by the KaZaA family of file sharing applications. Since the protocol is a well kept secret most discussions will relate to the giFT project, an open source implementation attempting to provide similar capabilities."
• Choon Hoong Ding, Sarana Nutanong, and Rajkumar Buyya, Peer-to-Peer Networks for Content Sharing in Ramesh Subramanian, Brian D. Goodman, Peer-to-peer computing: the evolution of a disruptive technology, Idea Group, 2005, ISBN 1591404304, pp. 58-61
• "Introduction to giFT - internet File Transfer". 2007-01-06. http://vodka-pomme.net/projects/introduction-to-gift-internet-file-transfer. Retrieved 2010-1-4. 

Further reading

• Minaxi Gupta, Markus Jakobsson, Andrew Kalafut, and Sid Stamm, Crimeware and Peer-to-Peer Networks, chapter 3 in Markus Jakobsson, Zulfikar Ramzan, Crimeware: understanding new attacks and defenses, Addison-Wesley, 2008, ISBN 0321501950, pp. 55-76 (discuses malware in the OpenFT and Limewire networks) A short version appeared in MCS'06

External links

• giFT (Official Website)
• About giFT
• The giFT-FastTrack project page
• The giFT-OpenNap project page
• The giFT-Ares project page