GiFT

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giFT
None
Developer:	jasta
Latest release:	0.2.1.6 / May 7, 2005
OS:	Cross-platform
Use:	Peer to peer
License:	GNU GPL
Website:	http://gift.sf.net/

The correct title of this article is giFT. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.

This page is about the computer software giFT. For other uses, see gift (disambiguation)

giFT stands for giFT: Internet File Transfer. It is a daemon that is intended to act as a bridge to combine the capability of using several (peer-to-peer or otherwise) file sharing protocols for a simple GUI client. It uses the plugin paradigm to dynamically load different protocols for a client as and when required. The currently supported networks include Gnutella, Ares Galaxy and OpenFT, giFT's own file sharing network. A FastTrack network (used by Kazaa) plugin is in beta, and there are alpha versions of an OpenNap plugin and an eDonkey plugin.

A lightweight protocol is used by clients to communicate with the giFT process, allowing the protocol code to be completely abstracted from the user interface. There are already several GUI front-ends available for giFT for use under Windows, Macintosh, and Unix-like operating systems.

giFT has strong ties with its sibling project OpenFT, a peer-to-peer file sharing network protocol that incorporates the concept of 'search' nodes and 'index' supernodes in addition of common nodes.

giFT was written using relatively cross-platform C code.

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 currently lacks unicode support included, so it is impossible to share files with characters such as "ø","ä", "å", "é", "è", "ó", "ö", "ù", "ü" in their names.

[edit] giFT front-ends

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