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In this episode of The WP Minute+, I sit down with Carrie Dils and Karim Marucchi to talk through FAIR—short for Federated and Independent Repositories—a new package management project launched under the Linux Foundation. If you're in the WordPress space and wondering what FAIR is, why it matters, and how it might change the plugin and theme ecosystem, this is the episode for you.

Carrie, one of FAIR’s elected co-chairs, walks us through the technical architecture and vision for FAIR, including how it aims to bring more resilience and transparency to how plugins and themes are distributed. Karim adds broader context from his enterprise experience, making the case for why redundancy and federation are vital for WordPress's future. We touch on the practical details of how FAIR works today—including Fastly nodes, AspirePress, and the .3 plugin release—while looking ahead at governance, funding, and how the Linux Foundation structures this initiative.

Of course, I have some tough questions: How will FAIR balance governance with innovation? Will it become “just another bureaucracy”? How do we avoid turning this into a divisive issue—FAIR vs. .org? We talk about those tensions and the team's intention for FAIR to extend WordPress, not split it. There’s also a good reality check on how plugin moderation, security scanning, and transparency are being improved through this effort.

Whether you're running an agency, building WordPress products, or just care about where the ecosystem is heading, this episode gives you a grounded view of what FAIR is—and what it isn’t.

Great Takeaways & Quotes:

• "This isn’t a fork. This is a failover." — Karim Marucchi
• "FAIR isn't just about today’s plugin distribution problems—it’s about creating a foundation for the next 20 years of WordPress."
• "We’re building a system where plugin trust, provenance, and availability don’t rely on a single choke point."
• "Yes, FAIR is about stability, but it’s also about discoverability—for both users and developers." — Carrie Dils
• "We’re not trying to replace .org—we’ve invited .org to join the federation."
• "Even though you don’t see a difference when you update a plugin, that’s the point. FAIR is meant to be invisible until you need it."

Important URLs Mentioned:

• FAIR Project GitHub (via fair.pm)
• Linux Foundation announcement on FAIR
• AspirePress