MLDonkey was originally intended as a Pure eDonkey2000 clone, running on Unix and Linux, a sector that the original client never served well. Since the release of version 2, there has also been development to access other networks (see OtherNetworksSupported), most notably the eDonkey2000 Offspring Overnet.
The history of MLDonkey has been lined with controversy, mostly based on the fact that the original client has always been proprietary, in terms of source code as well as transfer protocol. This has forced the MLDonkey developers to reverse engineer the basic mechanisms, but they didn't stop at that. In many cases, new functionality has been introduced, sometimes great and sometimes questionable. amish donkey pool
MLDonkey introduced a method to Connect to several servers simultaneously, thereby increasing search efficiency greatly. This was at a time when servers were quite small, and already strained (mainly by BOTS). Too many users, a few servers, new solutions needed.
