Federated FAIR pivots from WordPress to TYPO3

Andrew Nesbitt

FAIR package manager, originally built in response to the 2024 Automattic/WP Engine conflict to provide federated and cryptographically secure plugin distribution, is pivoting from WordPress to TYPO3. The WordPress governance crisis that drove initial demand de-escalated faster than expected, leaving FAIR without ecosystem buy-in from hosting companies. TYPO3 offers a more receptive community, smaller scale for iteration, and a concrete regulatory angle via the EU Cyber Resilience Act. The post also examines FAIR's technical architecture — DID-based identity, labeler-based trust separation, and AT Protocol borrowings — noting that despite its decentralization goals, it currently depends on Bluesky's centralized plc.directory for identity resolution. The broader labeler pattern, which separates package hosting from security assessment, is highlighted as having wide applicability beyond CMS ecosystems.

What's Going On with FAIR Package Manager