Gnutella Protocol Development

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July 2003

Gnutella 0.6 - Defining a standard

Status of this Memo

This memo documents the status of the Gnutella 0.4 standard and prepares for adoption of the Gnutella 0.6 standard. All aspects of user interface are excluded from this memo. All aspects of interaction with other file transfer systems are excluded from this memo. This memo provides information for the Gnutella Development community. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract
Gnutella servents have developed quickly to the point where servents that meet the existing Gnutella 0.4 standard are being pushed to the periphery of the network. The network that exists today is the Gnutella 0.6 network. This memo provides a detailed list of the essential components of a servent on the Gnutella 0.6 network. A methodology for evaluation of proposals is proposed. Based on results of testing, a new standard, Gnutella 0.7, is documented and subject to a vote by the Gnutella Developer Forum, this standard will be adopted.

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Conventions used in this document:
The terms stable, testing and unstable refer to maturity of various proposals and the extent to which they have been accepted into the core protocol in a manner similiar to the Debian release system.

Gnutella - stable
The current stable version of Gnutella is Gnutella 0.4 Developers are strongly advised to look at the current testing protocol. It will be declared stable by the end of September and offers far greater scalability.

Gnutella - testing
Gnutella 0.6 is has been tested over a 5 month period and currently is being treated as stable by developers.

Gnutella - unstable
For developers who have mature clients with appreciative user bases, the current push is to find ways of managing scalability, of minimising corrupt/badly labelled files (we have vandalism online as well) and of providing anonymity.

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