NixOS Domain Unification

Summary

Merge nix.dev into docs.nixos.org to have a single canonical domain for all things Nix.

Motivation

• Having both nixos.org and nix.dev is not great because they may seem to be owned by different entities.
• It also creates ambiguity about which one should be the proper one, because neither is a perfect match

Detailed Design

• Change the Netlify domain of nix.dev to docs.nixos.org
• Redirect any traffic from nix.dev to docs.nixos.org.

Ownership

Both nixos.org and nix.dev are already owned by the NixOS Foundation, so there's no change in ownership.

Sources

The source for the new docs.nixos.org will use the same source as the current nix.dev: https://github.com/NixOS/nix.dev

Drawbacks

• Confusion regarding docs being for Nix and not NixOS.

Alternatives

• Move everything from nixos.org to nix.dev instead.
  • (-) Very hard to do technically, as nixos.org has various subdomains and services
  • (-) Very hard to agree on, as nixos.org has been used for about 20 years now
  • (+) nix.dev is somewhat better of a domain name, since it makes it clearer that NixOS isn't necessary to use Nix
  • (-) .dev implies it's for developers, which is a point of contention
  • (-) .dev as a TLD also have long-term stability problems
• Move everything to a new but more fitting domain name
  • (-) This is an orthogonal effort and can be done later too
  • (-) As with the above alternative, hard to do technically and to agree on
  • Suggested alternatives have been:
    • nix.org
      • (+) Undoubtedly the ideal domain name
      • (-) As a three-letter domain name it would likely be very expensive, probably in the order of $10'000 to $100'000 to buy
    • nix-platform.org or nix-platform.com (@infinisil squatted these for now in case we want to use one)
      • (+) Would also allow establishing the term Nix Platform as the combination of all official Nix projects, mainly including Nix, NixOS and Nixpkgs.
        • (-) Nix Platform is not a widely agreed-upon term. It would require an independent discussion to establish it, and thus unduly grow the scope of this proposal.
      • (-) Those domain names are rather long.
    • nix-lang.org
      • (+) Some other languages use this pattern as well (e.g. elixir-lang.org)
      • (-) Gives the impression that the ecosystem revolves around the language, which not fully true and increases confusion.
• Trivial alternative of not doing anything and keeping both nix.dev and nixos.org as official websites.
  • (+) Doesn't require any effort
  • (-) Doesn't avoid the confusions about officiality of nix.dev and non-NixOS uses

Prior art

• NixOS/nix.dev#869
• NixOS/foundation#34
• NixOS/nix.dev#290
• NixOS/nixos-homepage#633
• https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nix-related-domains-that-i-control/10034
• NixOS/nix.dev#285
• NixOS/nixos-homepage#882
• NixOS/nixos-homepage#828

Unresolved questions

• What if there were to be docs on NixOS?

Future work

• Rework the design of the new docs.nixos.org to be consistent with the rest of the website.
• Maybe move nixos.org/guides/* to docs.nixos.org/guides/*.