Maybe add a banner to point to the web archive of the previous site? Life moves on and domains are ultimately rented much like our time here. Having a new business doesn’t stop you from honouring that, in my view.
Take the time to take snapshots in whatever appropriate method to archive his site, spawn a new static site under the name of "rememberingjoebloggs.whatever" and add a banner to your own site at his old domain at the top saying that you are honouring his life by keeping the site alive at a different address.
Then go and post on Hacker News what you've done and then contact some journalists who want feel good filler content.
Just make sure the person wasn't on a sex offenders register or anything else that would be brand damaging by association.
Personally I would add the mention as a comment section in the HTML Source. It gives attribute without it really impacting your site's content. The same way as I treat credits where credits are due but aren't really directly related to the product built.
Pointing to the original content on web.archive.org is a really nice idea. That keeps the original content accessible and gives people the opportunity to remember the deceased person.
Yes, some way of remembrance somewhere came to my mind. But ultimately it felt somewhat intrusive to me and not particularly fitting the new character of the site.
Take the time to take snapshots in whatever appropriate method to archive his site, spawn a new static site under the name of "rememberingjoebloggs.whatever" and add a banner to your own site at his old domain at the top saying that you are honouring his life by keeping the site alive at a different address.
Then go and post on Hacker News what you've done and then contact some journalists who want feel good filler content.
Just make sure the person wasn't on a sex offenders register or anything else that would be brand damaging by association.