this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2026
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Selfhosted

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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
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[–] Creat@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

While I'm fine with people wanting to self-host stuff with closed software (this includes Windows and Plex, btw), I personally am not interested in having ads of any kind in the community.

To me self hosting is about controlling your data. While I wouldn't use proprietary software myself for this, I just want to make it clear that I'm fine with people asking for help it advice about it. Just not ads, of any kind.

[–] SatyrSack@quokk.au 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Where do you draw the line? If a user who is generally a very active poster here wrote a useful program and hosted the source on Codeberg under a FOSS license, should they be allowed to make a post sharing it?

[–] Creat@discuss.tchncs.de 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

For me personally an ad is when I'm being sold something. I can't be sold something that is free and open. So someone showcasing their paid (but self hosted) service is an ad. Someone telling me about their (open) project is not.

And when someone wants to use either and asks for help, is also (obviously) not an ad. Unless we see a flood of accounts posting trivial questions about a paid service to draw attention to it, but I kinda doubt it.

[–] artyom@piefed.social 0 points 1 week ago

I can't be sold something that is free and open.

There's lot of paid FOSS stuff.