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2025 FAIR Recap

What a year. In just twelve months, FAIR went from an idea to a fully operational ecosystem with nine software products, a growing community, and a clear roadmap. Here's how it happened, in four phases.

Phase 1: Establish

FAIR was founded in early 2025 and launched publicly on June 5, 2025 in Basel, Switzerland. The founding was driven by a simple realization: the open-source software supply chain had a single point of failure, and that wasn't acceptable.

The launch generated significant media coverage and community support:

"FAIR represents a fundamental shift in how we think about software distribution in the WordPress ecosystem."

— Web Hosting Today

"This is exactly what the WordPress community needs — an independent, federated approach to package management."

— Brittany Day

"The fact that FAIR is a Linux Foundation project gives it the credibility and neutrality that this space desperately needs."

— Robin Scott

"Decentralized package management isn't just nice to have — it's essential for the long-term health of the open web."

— Josh Koenig

"FAIR's approach to trust and verification sets a new standard for open-source software distribution."

— Robin Bender Ginn

For more on the founding vision, see Joost de Valk's blog and Karim Marucchi's blog for their personal perspectives on why FAIR was necessary.

Phase 2: Extend

With the foundation in place, the team focused on building out the infrastructure. The FAIR website launched, comprehensive documentation was written, and AspireCloud received major improvements to its aggregation and search capabilities.

A pivotal moment was the launch of FAIR Beacon, a lightweight repository that anyone can host. This made FAIR's federated vision tangible — for the first time, anyone could run their own software repository and participate in the network.

During this phase, we also completed a major software renaming effort to clarify our product lineup:

  • FAIR Plugin became FAIR Connect — reflecting its role as the bridge between WordPress and the FAIR network
  • Mini FAIR became FAIR Beacon — a signal in the federated network
  • AspireExplore became FAIR Explorer — the web interface for browsing packages
  • AspireCloud — retained its name as the discovery aggregator
  • FAIR Forge — our build and distribution infrastructure

Phase 3: Engage

FAIR took its message on the road, engaging with the broader open-source community at conferences around the world.

  • LoopConf — Ryan McCue delivered his landmark "What is FAIR?" presentation, which became one of our most-shared pieces of content
  • WordCamp Canada — the team connected with the Canadian WordPress community and gathered valuable feedback
  • Patchstack Hackathon — collaboration with the security community on improving plugin security

This phase also saw the introduction of two important new components:

  • Labeller — a system for adding trust signals to packages, inspired by the Bluesky approach to content labeling
  • Policy Engine — automated policy enforcement for repository governance

Phase 4: Envision

In just six months of active development, FAIR grew to encompass nine software products. The team established a regular release cadence, with FAIR Connect shipping on a 6-week cycle and other products following their own rhythms based on community needs.

A public roadmap was published, giving the community visibility into where FAIR is headed and the opportunity to shape its direction. The roadmap reflects input from the Technical Steering Committee, the Governing Board, and the broader community of contributors and users.

Looking back, 2025 was the year FAIR proved that a federated, open, and independent approach to software distribution isn't just possible — it's necessary. Here's to an even bigger 2026.

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