SourceForge is an open source community where developers, programmers and the general public interact and discuss the course of various software. It’s home to a plethora of various software genres, including P2P favorites Azureus, eMule and Ares Galaxy.

The popularity of such software is evident in SourceForge's statistics section, where four of five applications are file-sharing related. The most downloaded application is the eDonkey2000 client eMule.

eMule, which recently distributed version .47a, has proven a crowd favorite among the eDonkey2000 community because of its lack of spyware/adware, abundance of features, and access to the resourceful Kad network. The fact it’s an open source application has also benefited the project, as such programs are generally viewed as superior to their proprietary cousins.

Following eMule is the recently turned open source P2P application Ares Galaxy. Developed by Alberto Treves, the Ares Galaxy application has steadily become more independent from its distance cousin Warez P2P. The split was enhanced back in September of 2005, when the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) challenged the leading commercial P2P developers to prohibit unauthorized sharing. Some developers such as FrontCode (WinMX) closed shop, while others entered negotiations (LimeWire, BearShare, MetaMachine.) Ares Galaxy however refused to give in, and released the source code. Although speculative at first, the move has proven successful as estimate place the population between 500,000 and 1,000,000 simultaneous users.

Azureus, a leading BitTorrent application, is the third most frequently downloaded program from SourceForge. Azureus revolutionized BitTorrent by introducing the DHT (Distributed Hash Table) network to BitTorrent. Although many questioned whether Azureus should implement Mainline DHT support, this line of reasoning is being reexamined due to BitTorrent Inc.’s recent alliance with the MPAA.

Although not directly related to P2P or file-sharing, the community generator phpBB comes in fourth, with Shareaza taking number five. Most, if not all, file-sharing websites use some kind of community bulletin board system – and since free and P2P go together so well, phpBB is typically the user forum of choice.

Yet out of the thousands of great selections of software, Azureus and eMule took the top honors from SourceForge’s first annual Community Choice Awards. Relying completely on the voice of the SourceForge community, Azureus took best overall winner. eMule was also recognized by the SourceForge community, and was named runner up.