Developer(s) Acquisition Operating system | Preview release unknown (unknown) [±] Type file sharing | |
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Stable release 2.2 (v223) (November 19, 2010; 6 years ago (2010-11-19)) [±] License Shareware (Single User from $25) | ||
Acquisition is a Gnutella-based peer-to-peer client designed specifically for Mac OS X. It supports BitTorrent and is based on LimeWire. A shareware product, it is priced from $25. Acquisition is noted more for its focus on user interface and integration with Mac OS X than for its originality in features, although it makes full use of Apple's Cocoa APIs, and integrates with iTunes.
Acquisition uses parts of the LimeWire core libraries, licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). The graphical user interface and the open source, modified LimeWire core run as separate processes, communicating via Unix pipes, which allows parts of the software to be relicensed. This follows in the footsteps of the precedent set by Apple's proprietary Xcode suite, which relies on open source components such as gcc and gdb.
Although Acquisition uses parts of LimeWire code, it continued to work after LimeWire's decision to disable its client. It was able to do so because the code that allowed Limewire to disable their software was absent, as it was from its sister programs Cabos and FrostWire, among others.