The Nicotine+ project's title summary contains superfluous text about the function of the client

[slook]

The Nicotine+ about text contains superfluous, unnecessary text "Graphical client for the Soulseek file sharing network" that seems controversial and may discourage external package managers from including the project in their repo's due to potential legal issues, even though the N+ client doesn't infact do anything illegal nor is it against any community guidelines.

Describe the solution you'd like

About summary text on the project's various pages and dialogs (including README.md and About Nicotine+) should not refer explicitly to any sort of "file sharing" capability, so it should be changed as such for example:

• "Nicotine+ is a graphical client for the Soulseek network."

• "A graphical client for the SoulSeek peer-to-peer system"

• "Graphical client for the SoulSeek network"

• "Graphical client for the Soulseek peer-to-peer network" <-- +2 Votes

• "Graphical GTK client for the Soulseek peer-to-peer network" <-- +1 Votes

• "Cross-platform GTK client for the SoulSeek P2P protocol"

• "Nicotine+ is a graphical client for the Soulseek network."

• "Nicotine+ is a Free and Open Source Soulseek client written in Python"

• or any other short phrase that the dev's feel is most appropriate and least controversial.

Additional context

The purpose of the slsk protocol is well known to network members, therefore it is unlikely that potential N+ users don't already know what the client does, (Edit: the client is aimed both new and experienced users, but those users are likely to already be familiar with the nature peer-to-peer network technologies).

By definition, 'Soulseekers' already know what they are looking for, which in this context is a FOSS client intended for users to collaborate over IP in whatever they wish whilst lawfully respecting the rights of others, without any undue hindrance from external agents.

Now that the project is considered to be stable and recent versions are becoming more widely adopted by users of the slsk protocol, it is more important than ever that regulators don't unfairly censor the client's installation packages just because of a superfluous phrase in the client's title description about summary text that indicates one of the many possible functions that the application could potentially be used for, because 'community guidelines' tend to be aggressively (perhaps even automatically) enforced nowadays due to over-zealous filtering of 'potentially harmful content'.

Implementing this suggested enhancement would make the project packages more likely for inclusion into mainstream distro repo's, and therefore aims to serve as a step towards resolving pinned issue #1448

[mathiascode]

I don't agree. The description hasn't been an issue so far, and it's unlikely that a description would change the outcome of a package inclusion. If file sharing is a concern, we would be dead in the water anyway, as all it takes is a few seconds to search for some copyrighted content and reject the program based on this.

The first search result for Soulseek mentions: Soulseek is a peer-to-peer file-sharing network and application.
The Soulseek about page mentions: Soulseek is an ad-free, spyware free, just plain free file sharing network for Windows, Mac and Linux

Not all of our users have been familiar with the Soulseek network previously, and this client is aimed at both new and experienced users, without all the papercuts present in the official client.

[slook]

Fair enough, you do indeed have justified reasons to leave the description the way it is if it is indeed intentional, and it is not my aim to be knocking your judgement on this point.

However... I wish to point out that the client's function is obvious for both new and experienced users to understand, for the very same reasons you mentioned, the fact that the Soulseek about page is honest and transparent in regard to the network's primary goal. It is therefore unnecessary in my opinion to repeat the same information, especially given that this poses an ever increasing risk, from an SEO perspective.

it's unlikely that a description would change the outcome of a package inclusion

I disagree with this statement, because you cannot know this for sure. I note that the official package maintainers have dropped support since 2015, with reference to issue #1448

I note that successful Torrent clients take the approach I have suggested in my proposed enhancement, with only mentions about the fact that the software is a "client", and searching for the terms "file" or "sharing" yields zero results on their webpages... Take for example Deluge, Transmission Tixati, qBittorrent and others, see links...

https://www.deluge-torrent.org/
https://transmissionbt.com/about/
https://tixati.com/
https://www.qbittorrent.org/

I'm thinking that there must be a good reason for the omission of the terms "file" and "sharing" on those projects web pages. Who knows for sure, but perhaps taking a similar cautious approach would be wise for N+

I would argue that the N+ has remained under the radar because it's distribution was previously obfuscated amongst being an immature project that was clearly under development, but now it is stable and actually works properly it no longer benefits from this protection anymore.

Given that the Nicotine+ project doesn't itself host any user content whatsoever, it would be inaccurate to indicate that it is an application that provides abilities for the sharing of files by itself, given that it depends on the underlying network infrastructure for that (something which is entirely beyond the control of the client developers).

I respectfully encourage you to consider using only the phrases like "client", "peer-to-peer" or "P2P" instead of "file sharing" because I believe this would shield you from undue legal implications applied in the future, from a robot perspective.

Although, contrary to my argument, I suppose making "the Soulseek file sharing network" clearly highlights that N+ has nothing to do with the network that provides sharing of those aforementioned files. Indeed this is why your valid argument is definitely also equally justifiable from a human perspective... I personally agree with you.

In summary, I suppose we are talking about a battle between robots and humans here, from an SEO perspective.

[slook]

Many recently (June 2020) banned apps were named or featured around the topic of sharing files, see article link:

https://www.digit.in/news/general/indian-government-bans-59-mobile-apps-including-tiktok-shareit-uc-browser-mi-community-and-more-55111.html

"The Indian government has accused these 59 mobile apps on Android and iOS platforms of “stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data” in an unauthorized manner to servers..."

This would suggest to me that there is increasing pressure for app stores (repo's) to delist apps and implement mechanisms to prevent non-compliance with such mandates.

[mathiascode]

I note that the official package maintainers have dropped support since 2015, with reference to issue #1448

This was due to Python 2 reaching end of life, and Nicotine+ being unmaintained.

If we're changing the description again, I propose something like:

Graphical client for the Soulseek peer-to-peer network

The description was already modified twice last year, so this needs to be thought-out before I start rummaging through files again.

[mathiascode]

Thoughts? @kiplingw

[slook]

Graphical client for the Soulseek peer-to-peer network

I like it! Your proposal has my vote :-)

I agree that the thoughts of others on here (and perhaps IRC channel?) would be most welcomed.

[kiplingw]

I like Graphical GTK client for the Soulseek peer-to-peer network

[mathiascode]

I would personally exclude the toolkit/language from the short description at least. From prior experience, it's not something the average user cares about, and similar programs don't seem to include it either. I think it's fine to include in keywords and other locations though, if someone actually includes the toolkit/language as a search term.

[mathiascode]

Opened a draft PR here: #1482