# Community + Code: Episode 28 - Carrie Dils > [!question] Lingering Questions > - What concrete adoption threshold would count as FAIR "making it" in WordPress, and by when? > - Can composer support land in FAIR without raising the barrier for non-technical site owners, or are those goals structurally in tension? > - How does FAIR's funding model avoid the stall that pushed Yoast-aligned contributors back? > [!tip] Article Ideas > - "Read it, do it, teach it" as a deliberate upskilling loop — turning Dils' chapter-to-course practice into a repeatable method for any technical topic. #articleseed > [!link] Cross Reference > - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Zet · FAIR scales federated WordPress distribution]] — same FAIR project, trust-as-scaling-constraint framing > - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Portability Is Proven by a Second Implementer Not by Design Intent]] — already covers this episode's TYPO3/composer claim (H4) in more depth; do not duplicate > - [[3. Resources/MOCs/Open Source Governance MOC]] > [!quote] Vocabulary > - **TSC (Technical Steering Committee)** — FAIR's governance body; contributors → organizers/voting members → three co-chairs (chosen over a single chair for diversity of perspective). > - **Trust signal** — a package-management verification that a plugin/theme is who and where it claims to be, and carries no known active vulnerabilities. ## Metadata - Source: [[3. Resources/Readwise/Articles/Community + Code Episode 28 - Carrie Dils]] - Category: Podcast/video (YouTube) ## Author's thesis Carrie Dils' career (HTML in the mid-90s → a decade at Starbucks → WordPress since ~2012 → over a decade teaching on Lynda.com/LinkedIn Learning) converges on two through-lines: durable expertise comes from teaching a concept, not just consuming it, and durable infrastructure comes from not depending on a single controllable repository. The second thesis is embodied in FAIR (Federated and Independent Repositories), the Linux Foundation-backed, CMS-agnostic project she co-chairs, built to answer "what if somebody turns WordPress.org off?" with provenance and vulnerability trust signals that WordPress package management currently lacks. ## Key arguments (≤3) 1. **Teaching cements understanding better than consumption**: Dils built her entire course catalog by reading source material deeply enough to explain it — "to be able to teach it, you have to understand it thoroughly." 2. **A single-controlled repository is a real, not hypothetical, supply-chain risk**: FAIR exists because WordPress.org going dark or being compromised "literally happened for a specific audience," making it both a technical and a business problem. 3. **Design should never force a site owner to become a developer** — the composer/low-barrier debate inside FAIR is really a persona-design argument about who should control updates versus who bears the risk of a broken site. ## Claim atoms ### Teaching a concept cements your own understanding > [!quote] ID:rw_czdljy6qrig_h1 > "to be able to teach it, you have to understand it thoroughly" Where: ~00:27:00, the teaching-as-learning segment. Why: this is the source's strongest reusable claim — it generalizes past WordPress entirely and matches Dils' own practice of turning book chapters into courses. ### FAIR exists in case WordPress.org gets turned off > [!quote] ID:rw_czdljy6qrig_h2 > "what if somebody turns WordPress.org off because we can't control that" Where: ~00:33:00, FAIR origin segment. Why: frames the single-point-of-failure risk as both technical and business-critical, and grounds FAIR's reason for existing. Already generalized by [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Zet · FAIR scales federated WordPress distribution]] — connect, don't duplicate. ### Trust signals verify a package's source and safety > [!quote] ID:rw_czdljy6qrig_h3 > "verifying that a package is who it's supposed to be from coming from the destination it's supposed to be from" Where: ~00:39:00, the "50 plugins, 34 outdated" scenario. Why: captures FAIR's concrete value proposition — provenance plus known-vulnerability verification that WordPress plugins currently lack. Covered by the same existing Permanent note above. ### Agnostic design lets TYPO3 force composer support into FAIR > [!quote] ID:rw_czdljy6qrig_h4 > "WordPress community have never been forced to think about composer in any sort of real supporting sort of sense" Where: ~00:55:00, the composer segment. Why: a second, independent consumer (composer-native TYPO3) surfaces requirements WordPress alone never would. Already the exact subject of [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Portability Is Proven by a Second Implementer Not by Design Intent]] — do not duplicate. ## Permanent candidates - **Teaching a concept cements your own understanding** (H1) — no existing Permanent note captures this specifically; promoted below. - **Don't force a site owner to become a developer** — the persona-design principle from the composer/barrier-to-entry debate; promoted below. No existing Permanent note found on this persona-design tradeoff. - H2, H3, H4 are already captured by [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Zet · FAIR scales federated WordPress distribution]] and [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Portability Is Proven by a Second Implementer Not by Design Intent]] — connect, don't recreate. ## Processing checklist - [x] Checked existing Permanent notes for FAIR/TYPO3/composer claims before creating new ones - [ ] Verify FAIR's current WordPress adoption numbers against a primary source before citing - [x] Connect into the relevant MOC — [[3. Resources/MOCs/Open Source Governance MOC]] ## Links - [[3. Resources/MOCs/Open Source Governance MOC]] — FAIR's federated trust-signal governance is a direct instance of this MOC's subject - [[3. Resources/MOCs/DevRel MOC]] — the teaching-as-learning thread and course-production craft sit in developer-education territory - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Zet · FAIR scales federated WordPress distribution]] — because evidence-for; this episode is another primary account of FAIR's trust-first design - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Portability Is Proven by a Second Implementer Not by Design Intent]] — because evidence-for; Dils' composer segment is the same TYPO3-as-second-implementer claim