  avahi is a free zero-configuration networking (zeroconf) implementation, including a system for multicast dns/dns-sd service discovery. it is licensed under the gnu lesser general public license (lgpl). avahi is a system which enables programs to publish and discover services and hosts running on a local network. for example, a user can plug their computer into a network and have avahi automatically advertise the network services running on the machine which could enable access to files and printers. == software architecture == thumb|right|architectural overview of the avahi software framework avahi implements the apple zeroconf specification, mdns, dns-sd and rfc 3927/ipv4ll. other implementations include apple's bonjour framework (the mdnsresponder component of which is licensed under the apache license). avahi provides a set of language bindings (python, mono, etc.) and ships with most linux and *bsd distributions. because of its modularized architecture, major desktop components like gnome's virtual file system and the kde input/output architecture already integrate avahi. == avahi vs. bonjour == the avahi project started in 2004 because apple's zeroconf implementation, bonjour, used the gpl-incompatible apple public source license. subsequently apple relicensed parts of bonjour under the apache license. however, avahi had already become the de facto standard implementation of mdns/dns-sd on free-software operating systems such as gnu/linux. avahi's performance resembles that of bonjour, sometimes exceeding it; however avahi can lose services when managing large numbers of requests simultaneously. [http://lipn.fr/~cerin/documents/presentationsgs08heithem.pdf analysis of peer-to-peer protocols performanc
Applications_using_D-Bus Free_network-related_software Free_software_programmed_in_C Freedesktop.org GNOME KDE