A number of brand new accounts have popped up shilling their paid for applications.

Is this within the rules? Is the community happy with this? Could mods clarify this in the rules?

Either allowing advertising, or banning it entirely.

my point is - there is a difference between an open source homegrown project that might be useful, vs closed source paid for projects from brand new accounts

some replies are misunderstanding, somehow.

I am against

brand new accounts who:

  1. first post is a brand new project
  2. project is closed source
  3. project will cost money
  4. is asking for free testing
  5. the post is literally an advertisement
  • Mereo@piefed.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    33
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    4 hours ago

    I selfhost because I want to be in control of my data and own it. Closed software is the antithesis of that. They’re just bots trying to advertise their software.

    • irmadlad@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      31
      ·
      3 hours ago

      I want to be in control of my data and own it. Closed software is the antithesis of that

      So, please do share how your homelab has indexed the entire global internet, so you can use your 100% selfhosted, 100% open source search engine? I’m very interested. I’ve always wanted to run a search engine that is not tied to someone else’s.

      • speculate7383@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        25
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        3 hours ago

        That’s a petty troll response to a legitimate statement of what someone wants (which aligns with this group’s stated focus), where they aren’t claiming what they have done

        • irmadlad@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          24
          ·
          3 hours ago

          It’s not trolling at all. You stated you got into self hosting because you wanted opensource and you want to retain all of your data. I’m asking you to share your homelab set up. A lot of people would be genuinely interested. The point being, all the gnashing of teeth is a duplicitous argument. If you truly do as you stated, then I’m wondering how you search a global internet from your homelab that indexes it all.

          • cecilkorik@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            10
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            3 hours ago

            Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. You’re sealioning this guy about his self-hosting setup and implying that we must freely accept all closed source and closed data in all areas simply because the “search” you seem to have rhetorically fixated on doesn’t have a fully independent open source implementation?

            That’s a disingenuous argument, and you’re absolutely trolling. With all due respect: shut the fuck up.

      • Mereo@piefed.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        3 hours ago

        Sigh… As always, life must be balanced. You can’t go from one extreme to the other. It’s a spectrum. I self-host what I deem important in order to keep it under my control and not on a capitalist platform.

        It’s an adventure, each month, you learn more and realize that you can host more services yourself.

        • irmadlad@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          2 hours ago

          I self-host what I deem important in order to keep it under my control and not on a capitalist platform.

          And I applaud you for that. However, the fact remains, that not everyone selfhosts for the same reasons. I got into selfhosting because I wanted to be as private, as secure, and as anonymous as I could be. However, I do thoroughly enjoy learning how to do things on my server. At my age, it’s good to keep what’s left of my brain active. I genuinely like to tinker. I do also make concessions.

          I looked at the rules, and I can’t find anything about closed source. I did find ‘without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don’t control.’ The reason this thread exists is because some people think closed source that integrates with selfhosted, opensource, is 100% out, and I find no evidence of such. It also states ‘Be civil: we’re here to support and learn from one another. Insults won’t be tolerated.’ Civility: Hey is this open source? Was it vibe coded? Ok no thanks bro.’ It sure isn’t the dog pile on the rabbit we see most of the time here when something AI, paid for, or closed source that integrates with opensource threads show up.

          I agree that 100% asking selfhosters to outright buy something should be out. We’ve seen a few of these. But, again, the reason this thread was started was because a dev asked a bunch of selfhosters to beta test an app that integrates with what most here run, and in return for your efforts, he will let you keep the app if you so desire. So, you actually do retain control. You can pass. You can beta test. You can uninstall. Your choice.

          • Mereo@piefed.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            2 hours ago

            Self-hosting is a community effort in which the whole community helps each other to self-host their data, including programming the services people use for this purpose. The problem with closed-source software is that we don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes, or if it’s indeed sending telemetry.

            Even worse, if that service is ever no longer supported or updated, I’ll be left with data on my server that can’t be used to its full potential, and a service that won’t receive security updates.

            Open-source software, on the other hand, is a community effort. If, for example, software is no longer updated or supported, it can easily be forked, and my data can be transferred to the new service.