MFTP

Multisource File Transfer Protocol (MFTP) is designed for the purpose of file-sharing. It is still under development and therefore may acquire more features in the future as development continues. MFTP is a communication protocol similar to FTP except is broadcasts the same file over multiple clients. Services such as eMule and eDonkey use this protocol as part of the distribution method.

MFTP offers serveral different features such as searching and indexing by filename as well as uniquely identifying files by their contents, regardless of how they are named on each individual computer making up the array. it also has bandwidth management built into the protocol to help prevent leech abuse. Each program that uses the MFTP protocol allows the user to tweak the proration of upload speed they want to allow other users to take from them. With this protocol, it is also possible to share metadata between clients within a given file with links to websites to research in case you receive a corrupted file.

Several different programs have created forks to the protocol that allow for features such as "hording" of sources, a technology implemented by the eDonkey 2000 service and a credit system implemented by the eMule network. It has also been announced that MFTP has undergone several successful tests on the Internet2 project, achieving excellent results in terms of speed and reliability when transferring and sharing files.