Michael Stokes

Michael Stokes (Mike) is a C++ programmer working on Shareaza, a multi-protocol client developed for Windows that can access Gnutella, Gnutella2, eDonkey2000, and BitTorrent.

He is the sole creator of Gnutella2 and introduced it in late 2002. Its release triggered much criticism from the Gnutella Developer Forum as it was developed without peer-review and because, at the time he released it, he had not written full specifications (which were later released on March 26, 2003). As a result, many still refer to it as 'Mike's Protocol,' or 'MP' for short because it isn't taken like Gnutella successor.

While still an active developer in the Shareaza project, he has since become the chief software engineer for Mercora.