Joost de Valk Exits Federated WordPress Repository Project

Joost De Valk, founding father of Yoast search engine marketing, introduced that he’s stepping away from FAIR, a Linux Basis challenge for creating an unbiased repository of themes and plugins.

Honest Undertaking

The FAIR challenge was launched in mid-2025 in response to the Matt Mullenweg changed WP Engine’s Superior Customized Fields (ACF) plugin within the official repository along with his personal model (referred to as a fork, when a reproduction is created). Mullenweg additionally locked out WP Engine and plenty of of its prospects from accessing the official WordPress.org theme and plugin repository and associated replace providers.

Mullenweg’s actions drew important criticism and introduced consideration to the truth that the WordPress ecosystem had a single level of failure, resulting in a motion to decentralize the plugin and theme repository by the creation of a federated group of unbiased hosted repositories.

This led to the creation of the FAIR challenge. Joost de Valk performed a central position in describing why the neighborhood wanted unbiased repositories and helped to co-found the challenge, serving to to get it off the bottom and into the fingers of a impartial governance mannequin.

Joost de Valk Steps Away From FAIR

At the moment, de Valk introduced that he was stepping away from FAIR, citing the dearth of monetary help for the challenge as one of many causes holding again the challenge from changing into a extra viable entity.

He explained:

“In latest months, we’ve had many conversations with internet hosting firms and different giant ecosystem gamers. What turned more and more clear is that this: they don’t wish to spend money on this type of resolution.

Not as a result of they love the present scenario. Not as a result of they agree with all the things that’s occurred. However as a result of funding means dedication. It means price. It means moving into political stress. And most of all, it means threat.”

Joost’s publish mentions the “political stress” and “threat” that might come up from supporting FAIR however he doesn’t put a reputation to what that stress or dangers are. However it’s pretty apparent that a type of tensions could allude to the fact that supporting FAIR may very well be seen as taking sides within the dispute between Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine. The stakes are excessive for net hosts, risking hundreds of thousands and even billions of {dollars} in earnings. So it might not be stunning that net hosts usually are not eager to help the FAIR challenge right now.

FAIR Undertaking Points A Assertion

The FAIR challenge acknowledged Joost’s determination to step away, affirming that funding has continued to be an issue. A publish on FAIR acknowledged that FAIR continues to operate as an unbiased challenge, affirming that FAIR was by no means WordPress-specific however meant to be an industry-wide resolution for software program supply-chain safety.

The weblog publish explained:

“The issues FAIR solves usually are not WordPress-specific. Provide chain safety, decentralized distribution, belief and verification are industry-wide points they usually’re changing into extra pressing, not much less.

The EU’s Cyber Resilience Act arrives in December 2027 and when it does, software program provide chain integrity turns into a regulatory requirement – demonstrating provenance, safety scanning, and traceable replace mechanisms. FAIR’s structure is constructed with precisely this type of trustworthiness in thoughts.

We haven’t given up on WordPress. We nonetheless welcome contributors and ecosystem leaders to affix us so we are able to proceed advancing the work.”

The FAIR challenge continues however it might be shifting ahead in a diminished state with out a high-visibility spokesperson who’s lively within the WordPress neighborhood. However given the dearth of internet hosting {industry} participation, it might be that FAIR will grow to be extra viable as soon as the Mullenweg-WP Engine saga is wrapped up.

Featured Picture by Shutterstock/Mathias Elle