"Gnutella's past can be best compared to an abused farm animal. During its lengthy history, it has gone through torment and anguish rarely seen by any other P2P network. However, it has managed to hang on despite vocal, and often violent, criticism against this network.
"Gnutella was the brainchild of Justin Frankel during his days at Nullsoft (a small sub-division of AOL.) This program was released in mid March of 2000, during the glory days of Napster. When news got out of its release, the executives at AOL ordered that the client be removed from the Nullsoft site. However, it was too late, as thousands of copies had already been distributed. Within a day, the program was reverse engineered, and clones began to spring up..."
