mate-user-share is a small package that binds together various free software projects to bring easy to use user-level file sharing to the masses. The program is meant to run in the background when the user is logged in, and when file sharing is enabled a webdav server is started that shares the $HOME/Public folder. The share is then published to all computers on the local network using mDNS/rendezvous, so that it shows up in the Network location in Gnome. The dav server used is apache, so you need that installed. Avahi or Howl is used for mDNS support, so you need to have that installed and mDNSResolver running.