Some thoughts on merging 0install.net and 0install.de

0install.net is an English website with a focus on the original version Zero Install for Linux. 
0install.de is an English and German website with a focus on Zero Install for Windows.
The following is a discussion on merging these two sites.

> On 26 July 2016 at 14:08, Bastian Eicher <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Hi Thomas,
> >
> > I have just finished a few small design changes on 0install.de to bring the
> > look closer to 0install.net. This got me thinking about the possibility of
> > merging 0install.net and 0install.de again. From the perspective of an
> > end-user the separation probably seems somewhat arbitrary and confusing.
> >
> > Perhaps we could take individual steps like these:
> > 1. Align the visual design of the two websites as close as possible.
> > 2. Design a common landing page for both sites.
> > 3. Design a common navigation bar for both sites.
> > 4. Host the content of both sites under the same domain name. We could keep
> > 0install.net content as static HTML files and 0install.de content as
> > WordPress-generated, since the file names / URIs do not collide.
> > 5. Move some content from static HTML files to WordPress to add
> > multilingual/translation support.
> >
> > What do you think about this? Do you have any concerns or different ideas?
> >
> > Regards
> > Bastian
>
> On 28 July 2016 at 21:53, Thomas Leonard <[email protected]> wrote:
> Yeah, it would be good to bring these closer together. Would adding
> another subdomain be useful? e.g. docs.0install.net or something?
> 
> The main problem I have with dynamic sites is that they tend to get
> hacked after a while, and then it takes effort to clean it all up. I
> did attempt to move it to github pages
> (https://0install.github.io/web-site/) though ideally I'd like to have
> something handle the php bug-reporter link, which github doesn't
> support.
> 
> We should probably discuss it on the mailing list...

I agree that static websites are preferable from a security standpoint. However, using WordPress for 0install.de has provided a few advantages for me:
 * Logic for navigation, menus, shared title bars, etc. comes "for free".
 * I use WordPress' user account features for 0install.de Sync. I did not have to build features like sign-up, forgot password, etc. myself.
 * There are a bunch of ready-made plugins that implement "boring" stuff such contact forms and language switching.
 * I can edit the website from my smartphone. ;)
The recurring theme with all this is: It saves me time that it can instead spend tinkering on Zero Install itself.

I host 0install.de on a dedicated VM. I create daily offline backups and can rebuild everything from scratch using Puppet in about an hour.
While this setup does have a lot more moving parts than static hosting and naturally can never be bullet-proof, I am reasonably confident in the security of the current setup.
Any recommendations on how to further improve this are very welcome!

@Thomas: Regarding the docs.0install.net subdomain idea: Which content would you envision there? Mainly the technical details, making the main page more end-user focused?

@All: Any other ideas how to bridge the gap between the two pages? Perhaps somebody with mad CSS-fu skills interested in lending a hand?

Regards
Bastian


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