# XMule

> Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/XMule
> Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/XMule.md
> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMule
> Source revision: 1305284539
> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

xMule Developer xMule team Release June 2003; 23 years ago (2003-06) Stable release 1.13.7 RC1 (September 11, 2006; 19 years ago (2006-09-11)[1]) [±] Operating system Cross-platform Available in C++ Type peer-to-peer file sharing License GNU General Public License v2 Website www.xmule.ws

**xMule** (short for "[X11](/source/X_Window_System) Mule") is a discontinued [free](/source/Free_software)[2] client for the [eDonkey](/source/EDonkey_network) [peer-to-peer](/source/Peer-to-peer) [file sharing](/source/File_sharing) network intended to bring it to virtually all the major [Unix](/source/Unix) platforms, with a particular emphasis on [Linux](/source/Linux).

xMule was coded in [C++](/source/C%2B%2B) using [wxWidgets](/source/WxWidgets) and released under [GNU General Public License](/source/GNU_General_Public_License) v2. xMule is a fork of lMule,[3] itself a [port](/source/Porting) of [eMule](/source/EMule). [aMule](/source/AMule) is a fork of xMule.

## History

### xMule

In June 2003, due to differences between the developers and the hijacking of lMule's official website by one contributor, lMule's fork, xMule, was created.[4][5]

Unlike eMule, which uses [MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes)](/source/Microsoft_Foundation_Class_Library), xMule used [wxWidgets](/source/WxWidgets) for the [graphical user interface](/source/Graphical_user_interface), therefore could run on many platforms. It fully supported [Linux](/source/Linux) and [*BSD](/source/*BSD), and was intended to support [Windows](/source/Windows) and [MacOS](/source/MacOS).[6]

On 17 August 2003, Ted R. Smith, xMule's only maintainer who lived in the [United States](/source/United_States) 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](/source/Recording_Industry_Association_of_America) (RIAA) for [Digital Millennium Copyright Act](/source/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act) (DMCA) related issue.[7][8][9]

xMule's final release was 1.13.7 RC1 in September 2006.[10]

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 [peer-to-peer](/source/Peer-to-peer) was the [BitTorrent](/source/BitTorrent) protocol. The official xMule website encouraged users to move to the BitTorrent network or use aMule.[11]

### aMule

On 18 August 2003, shortly after the incident involving Ted R. Smith, [aMule](/source/AMule) (meaning "another Mule" and later "All-platform Mule") 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",[12] 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](/source/Internet_Explorer) and [Mozilla](/source/Mozilla).[13] aMule has added the support for Windows and MacOS.

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** ["xMule v1.13.7 RC1 is out!"](http://www.xmule.ws/node/52). xMule team. 2006-09-11. Retrieved 2010-10-21.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** Guelff, Christophe; Allart, Philippe (2011-07-07). [*Hackez votre Eee PC: L'ultraportable efficace*](https://books.google.com/books?id=0MId3jwoKukC&dq=xMule&pg=PA18). Eyrolles. p. 18. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [9782212084269](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9782212084269). Retrieved 15 July 2021.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Blondeel, Sébastien; Cartron, Daniel; Risi, Juliette; Thomas, Jean-Marie (2011-07-07). [*Débuter sous Linux avec Mandriva*](https://books.google.com/books?id=0xx1gDjizTsC&dq=xMule&pg=PA200). Eyrolles. p. 200. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [9782212130492](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9782212130492). Retrieved 15 July 2021.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** ["Timeline"](https://web.archive.org/web/20110628175959/http://www.xmule.ws/lmuleorg_takeover.txt). Archived from [the original](http://www.xmule.ws/lmuleorg_takeover.txt) on 2011-06-28. Retrieved 2021-07-16.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** ["LMule - eMule for Linux"](https://web.archive.org/web/20050416174801/http://lmule.sourceforge.net/news.php). Archived from [the original](https://lmule.sourceforge.net/news.php) on 2005-04-16. Retrieved 2021-07-16.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-6)** ["About xMule"](https://web.archive.org/web/20170817093816/http://www.xmule.ws/about). Archived from [the original](http://www.xmule.ws/about) on 2017-08-17. Retrieved 2021-07-16.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-7)** michael (2003-08-21). ["RIAA/MPAA vs. xMule Author, EarthStation 5"](https://yro.slashdot.org/story/03/08/21/1333258/riaampaa-vs-xmule-author-earthstation-5). [Slashdot](/source/Slashdot). Retrieved 15 July 2021.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-8)** Champeau, Guillaume (2003-08-21). ["Un proche d'eMule attaqué en Justice !"](https://www.numerama.com/magazine/964-un-proche-d-emule-attaque-en-justice.html). *[Numerama](/source/Numerama)*. Retrieved 15 July 2021.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-9)** ["I've been personally shut down..."](https://web.archive.org/web/20031004175420/http://home.regit.org/datas/html/article-xmule.php.html) *Ted R. Smith*. Archived from [the original](http://home.regit.org/datas/html/article-xmule.php.html) on 2003-10-04. Retrieved 2021-07-16.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-10)** ["xMule v1.13.7 RC1 is out!"](https://web.archive.org/web/20170815190138/http://www.xmule.ws/node/52). Archived from [the original](http://www.xmule.ws/node/52) on 2017-08-15. Retrieved 2021-07-16.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-11)** ["Development Status"](https://web.archive.org/web/20120220045813/http://xmule.ws/node/59). *xMule*. Archived from [the original](http://xmule.ws/node/59) on February 20, 2012. Retrieved 2009-01-26.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-12)** ["xMule"](https://web.archive.org/web/20200203212521/http://wiki.amule.org/wiki/XMule). *AMule Project wiki*. Archived from [the original](http://wiki.amule.org/wiki/XMule) on 2020-02-03. Retrieved 2021-07-16.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-13)** ["The Coding Philosophies of xMule vs aMule"](https://web.archive.org/web/20061008054011/http://www.xmule.ws/phpnuke/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=2). *xMule*. Archived from [the original](http://www.xmule.ws/phpnuke/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=2) on October 8, 2006. Retrieved 2006-07-23.

- [Free and open-source software portal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Free_and_open-source_software)

v t e eDonkey network Technology eDonkey network Overnet Kad network Kademlia Magnet URI scheme ed2k URI scheme eD2k Hash Clients (comparison) aMule eDonkey2000 eMule eMule Plus JMule lMule Lphant MLDonkey Morpheus Shareaza xMule Indexing sites ShareReactor ShareConnector Famous servers Razorback2

v t e Peer-to-peer file sharing Networks, protocols Centralized Direct Connect Soribada Soulseek XDCC Decentralized BitTorrent DAT eDonkey FastTrack Fopnu Hyphanet GNUnet Gnutella Gnutella2 I2P IPFS Kad LBRY OpenFT OnionShare Perfect Dark Retroshare Share Tribler WebTorrent WinMX Winny ZeroNet Historic Audiogalaxy CuteMX Hotline Kazaa LimeWire Morpheus Napster Scour Usenet WASTE Comparisons of clients Advanced Direct Connect BitTorrent Direct Connect Gnutella Gnutella2 WebTorrent Hyperlinks eD2k Magnet Metalink Uses Backup Broadcatching Disk sharing Game and video sharing Image sharing Music sharing Peercasting Seedboxes Sharing software Web hosting (Freesite, IPFS, ZeroNet) Legal aspects Concepts Privacy Anonymous P2P Darknet Darkweb Friend-to-friend Open music model Private P2P Tor Internal technologies Distributed hash table Merkle tree NAT traversal Peer exchange BitTorrent protocol encryption SHA-1 SHA-2 Super-seeding BitTorrent tracker UDP hole punching Micro Transport Protocol

---
Adapted from the Wikipedia article [XMule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMule) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMule?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.
