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Use Jekyll to build F-Droid.org

If Wordpress on F-Droid.org is replaced by a static website generator, this has several advantages:

  • Content is generated from public files and everyone can contribute to them
  • Beside of that, the layout code will likely be simplified and is editable by everyone too (see #146 (closed))
  • Improved performance because you use static HTML instead of dynamic PHP scripts
  • Improved security because you can't hijack the website by accessing an old Wordpress instance. (To be honest: instead you can hijack the website by getting access to the GitLab.com infrastructure. But this is less likely to happen.)

Examples

I got inspired for this by GitLab.com and GitLab Pages. Basically, all *.gitlab.io and *.github.io are using static websites.

Software to use

Problems

Some parts of the website can't be ported to a static website:

  • Browse will maybe be difficult to port. Maybe we can cooperate with Fossdroid.com.
  • Forum is generated by Wordpress IIRC. We could switch to something more modern like Discourse, but that's not needed.
  • Wiki is made with MediaWiki and can stay like it is. It can also be generated by static files (not needed too).

Next steps

  • Creating a repository for the website: fdroid/fdroid-org
  • Decide which software to use
  • Build website with chosen software
  • Switching from Wordpress to GitLab CI generated pages

@fxedel As the creator of the modern layout: what do you think of this?