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Inside Rust: Announce sunsetting of the rustwasm GitHub Org (#1663)
This is an announcement on the Inside Rust blog about the upcoming sunsetting of the rustwasm GitHub organization along with various handling of the repositories within, e.g. `wasm-bindgen`.
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path = "inside-rust/2025/07/21/sunsetting-the-rustwasm-github-org"
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title = "Sunsetting the rustwasm GitHub org"
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authors = ["Alex Crichton"]
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aliases = []
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In 2024 the Rust and WebAssembly Working Group was [officially
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archived][archive] in the Rust project after ~5 years of inactivity with an
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intent to shut down the [rustwasm] GitHub Organization soon after. Although a
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bit later than intended the purpose of this post is to give a concrete timeline
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for this process in which the [rustwasm] GitHub Organization will become fully
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archived.
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The [`wasm-bindgen`] repository is going to be transferred to a new
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[wasm-bindgen organization][wbgorg] with new additional maintainers. All
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other repositories in the [rustwasm] organization are going to be archived in
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place or transferred to their existing maintainers if they elect to do so.
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Transferring [`wasm-bindgen`] will occur in the weeks following this post and
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archiving the organization is going to happen September 2025.
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The [rustwasm] organization has historically been under the purview of the Rust
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and WebAssembly Working Group, and given the historical prominence of some
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projects it contained, this post is serving as an announcement of upcoming plans
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for repositories in the organization.
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[archive]: https://github.com/rust-lang/team/pull/1489
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[wbgorg]: https://github.com/wasm-bindgen
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## History of the Rust and WebAssembly Working Group
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The Rust and WebAssembly Working Group was [created in 2018][create] as part of
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the initiative for the 2018 edition at the time. Through 2019 the
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working group was quite active and helped Rust's support for WebAssembly
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flourish. Tools such as [`wasm-bindgen`] and [`wasm-pack`] were created as part
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of this effort and continue to be used to this day. After 2019 though the
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organization saw a drastic reduction in activity and most projects have been in
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maintenance mode for nearly 5 years at this point.
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While the working group has been officially archived for over a year now the
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repositories in the [rustwasm] organization continued on and continued to see
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some use and minor maintenance. This has perpetuated a confusing situation for
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users and maintainers alike where it's not clear what the maintenance story for
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many of these repositories are and how to move forward with the repositories
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that are actively in use.
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## Sunsetting the `rustwasm` Organization
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In September of 2025 the [rustwasm] GitHub organization will be archived to
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cease all activity within the organization. This will help clarify that
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[rustwasm] is no longer a central hub for all things Rust-and-WebAssembly but
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instead is a historical archive of efforts.
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The [rustwasm] organization has a number of repositories within it, most of
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which haven't seen any activity in quite some time. The current plan at this
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time is to arrange for [`wasm-bindgen`] to be transferred to a new
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[project-specific organization][wbgorg] and additionally add new fresh
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maintainers to assist with project direction going forward. All other
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repositories in the [rustwasm] organization will be archived or transferred to
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their existing maintainers if needed.
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### Transferring `wasm-bindgen`
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The [`wasm-bindgen`] project is relied on in a number of contexts today and
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existing users have expressed interest in both maintaining and growing the
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repository over time. The [rustwasm] organization is no longer a great home for
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this work so the plan is to transfer it out to a new home in a neutral location
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not owned by any one person or company. This transfer will be coupled with
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inviting new maintainers to the repository for improved project maintenance in
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addition to evolving the project.
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While a critical mass of new maintainers has already been reached, if you are
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interested in helping out with maintenance [an issue has been
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created][wasm-bindgen-help] to coordinate efforts around maintenance with
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[`wasm-bindgen`]. Feel free to leave a comment there to help out with this
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transition.
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### Archiving other repositories
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The current plan at this time is to archive all other repositories in the
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[rustwasm] organization. This includes repositories such as:
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* https://github.com/rustwasm/wasm-pack
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* https://github.com/rustwasm/gloo
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* https://github.com/rustwasm/twiggy
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* https://github.com/rustwasm/walrus
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* https://github.com/rustwasm/weedle
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* (see https://github.com/orgs/rustwasm/repositories for the full list)
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> **Note**: wasm-bindgen depends on crates such as `walrus` and `weedle` at this
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> time and won't depend on archived repositories. Depending on how maintainers
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> would like to organize it these dependencies may be inlined into the
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> wasm-bindgen repository for wasm-bindgen's needs or they may be transferred to
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> the new wasm-bindgen organization. Regardless wasm-bindgen will not be using
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> unmaintained dependencies.
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If you are an preexisting maintainer of one of these repositories please reach
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out to have the repository transferred to you. Otherwise it's not clear at this
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time whether these repositories are still actively in use or how much they're
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relied on. The historically trusted nature of the [rustwasm] organization means
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it's not quite as simple as transferring these repositories to the first
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volunteer. Instead transferring repositories will require vetting new
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maintainers for trustworthiness and reliability and unfortunately the current
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admin of the [rustwasm] organization is not prepared to do this.
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If your use case critically relies on these repositories it is
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recommended to fork the repository. Where required it's possible to leave a
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message in the old README pointing to the fork. If a fork is not viable then
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understanding is appreciated in that the [rustwasm] organization has been
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inactive for over 5 years now and there are no known active maintainers to
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reach out to. Charting a path for each repository requires a significant amount
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of effort to understand current users and plan for future users and no one is
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available to perform this work. The goal of this effort is to do the best with
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maintainers/admins that still remain and while not a perfect answer it's
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predicted the best answer in many cases here is archiving the repository.
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As an absolute last resort you can reach out to [@alexcrichton] on Zulip to
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discuss alternatives.
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## Timeline for transfers/archives
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The [`wasm-bindgen`] repository will be transferred to a new [wasm-bindgen
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organization][wbgorg] in the weeks after this post. Some minor details still
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need to be sorted out maintainer-wise and that's all that's left to do.
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Afterwards a final grace period will be allowed until September at which point
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the [rustwasm] organization will become fully archived. Issues will be filed in
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various repositories giving a heads up to any interested folks indicating as
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such.
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[rustwasm]: https://github.com/rustwasm
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[create]: https://blog.rust-lang.org/2018/12/06/Rust-1.31-and-rust-2018/
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[`wasm-bindgen`]: https://github.com/rustwasm/wasm-bindgen
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[`wasm-pack`]: https://github.com/rustwasm/wasm-pack
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[@alexcrichton]: https://github.com/alexcrichton
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[wasm-bindgen-help]: https://github.com/rustwasm/wasm-bindgen/issues/4533
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