I've divided my answer into two parts (1) the situation of the developers and (2) Is Limewire a worthy product?

PART I
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THE BASICS:

1) Limewire has a team of professional programmers working full-time on Limewire supported by other volunteer developers.

2) They charge for a Spam/Spyware-free version of the software.
http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...&threadid=6423
(just in case you doubt that Limewire has ever been bundled with Spyware)

3) There are many clean Gnutella clients downloadable free of charge with no spam or spyware:
http://www.unitethecows.com/
http://www.zeropaid.com/

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

a) That they have a lot of competition and any disappointed users can simply switch client in a few minutes at no personal cost.

b) The fact that they have chosen a commercial model gives the paying users a right to be demanding and [constructively] critical with bug reports and update requests during the six-month period of subscription. This is, in effect, a contract where Limewire , on receiving payment, agrees to provide a service to the customer during this period. Of course, as no specific conditions are mentioned, it is up to the customer to decide whether it meets his or her expectations or not.
More importantly in the long-term, LW has to convince Pro users to renew their subscriptions at the end of the six months.

PART II
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IS LIMEWIRE A WORTHY PRODUCT?

I won't go into details as these are covered in other threads but, in general Limewire has made reasonable progress with core issues like Resume Download and recent versions do seem to find hosts quicker and have more stable connections. I am a bit suspicious about very frequent 'third number' updates with only cosmetic changes, though. In general, it seems to do what it should - ie. search for and download files. Its limitations compare favourably with other Gnutella clients I have tried.

The main downside seems to be lack of quality information:

1) There is no version history on the update page, with the installer or on this forum (see this thread).

http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...threadid=11418

2) There doesn't seem to be a clear development plan (to do list). They vaguely mention some plans in posts on the 'What feature would YOU like?' thread

http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...&threadid=7199

but only in answer to specific questions and, since there is no update log, we often don't know which of these ideas are being implemented. Other repeated requests they don't even respond to like the version history thread mentioned above (a week to date).

3) The influence of Java implementation and how it limits Limewire are not made clear (Windows/Linux has JRE 1.4, Mac OSX has 1.3.1, Mac OS9 has 1.1.8). This is a common source of confusion.

4) Similarly the progression of the Gnutella protocol and its relationship to the development of Limewire should be explained (in an FAQ).

5) The FAQ's are not very helpful and are not updated to deal with recent issues.

CONCLUSION
=========

As a Mac user my choice of clients was limited. I tried LW, Mactella, Carracho, eDonkey and Hotline. Limewire worked best (some didn't work at all). I liked the idea of a professionally developed client and I decided to pay. There have been a few reasonable updates since then. However, I don't feel we (the users) are being properly informed about ongoing development and about the overall policy of Limewire. Perhaps the common commercial syndrome of rolling out loads of minor updates to make users think they're getting their money's worth could be an influence.

I've also read X-files-esque conspiracy theories by Moak and others about Spyware, the LW/BS Masterplan etc.

http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...0&pagenumber=5

and, while I take them with a pinch of salt, they do concern me. Nothing is clear cut: Users want everything for free and programmers want to be paid. Commercialism corrupts but altruism (while commendable) is tiring and doesn't pay bills. Do they want to rule Gnutella or are they working for the good of the Gnutella Community? All the more reason to probe them every step of the way until they clarify things!

What do you think?