18.8 million searching results in Google English seems embarrassed for a 545 million downloads software, that is eMule. Back to the dawn of May 13th 2002, a Jerry named Merkur, who was dissatisfied with the original eDonkey2000 client and was confident that he could do better, gathered other developers to begin eMule Project. They build eMule Project aimed at putting the client back on track where eDonkey had been famous before, adding tons of new features and a nice GUI. They wouldn’t dream of what impact this
decision would have… As of today, eMule is one of the biggest and most reliable peer-to-peer file sharing clients around the world with a large user base, currently averaging 3 to 4 million people, which share some 4 billion files. As it is an open source file sharing application, many developers are able to contribute to the project, making the network more efficient with each release. It is a software with over 545 million download, as well as a software will never appear on the famous tech media’s headlines.
The name “eMule” comes from an animal called “Mule” which is somehow similar to a donkey; however, eMule has a great difference with eDonkey. As a popular open source program, the distinguishing features of eMule are the direct exchange of sources between client nodes, fast recovery of corrupted downloads, and the use of a credit system to reward frequent uploaders. Moreover, eMule transmits data in zlib-compressed form to save bandwidth. eMule has many variants, usually called mods. Beside that, different from eDonkey, eMule is a non-profit peer-to-peer file sharing application, which avoiding the copyright infringement. Its predecessor was not so lucky, eDonkey involved into the copyright infringement lawsuits brought by the RIAA. The developer of the eDonkey2000 client, MetaMachine Inc.’s agreement with RIAA to pay $30 million to avoid potential copyright infringement sentenced the death of eDonkey. According to the agreement, eDonkey must stop distribution of their software as well as to take measures to prevent the use of previous copies of their software for file sharing. eMule continues eDonkey’s idea of sharing files, which had been the dominant client on the network since 2002. Non-profit wins profit.
eMule’s original logic is free, open and sharing. Although eMule’s founder Merkur has left eMule in late 2002, Version 0.23b was the latest last eMule version in which he participated. eMule didn’t die with his leaving. Thanks to its open source policy many developers are able to contribute to the project, making the network more efficient with each release. Along with eMule’s 8 year life, more developers joined the project, which spend their spare time on the effort of providing free file for all users. All they did are not related with money, but for the passion on happiness, knowledge and sharing.
eMule in China is a gibbed “Mule”. Due to the popularity and open source nature of eMule, some third-parties have found modified versions of it, among which, VeryCD’s easyMule is a famous one tailored to Chinese users. easyMule developed by VeryCD company since 2007 and grew into the company’s primary client. According to VeryCD, it “aims to be the biggest and the most user-friendly P2P seed database website in the world… Its declaration against corruption from capitalized operation kept the website organized and free of advertisement abuse.” However, it was criticized for their misleading name “Dianlv” (literally “Electronic Donkey”; generally the Chinese name for eDonkey or eMule) and the site emule.org.cn, which is named “Dianlv (eMule) Chinese Site”. It also removes the category, message, IRC, custom skin and some other features from eMule, adds Browser Helper Object plugin to users’ IE browser. The browser built in easyMule can only access VeryCD.com site. Now, VeryCD was considered as a commercial company which had a lot of advertisement on the website
eMule is an idiosyncratic mule in the gainful commercial community, providing happiness and knowledge for users. All the developers of eMule did is just for fun and sharing, nothing to do with money. Due to the popularity and open source nature of eMule, the modified versions are popular; all of these could not affect its developers’ and users’ passion for it. For a nonprofit app, fake one could not influence it, users’ support is the biggest reason for its existence.
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