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I first released the Members plugin in September 2009. I had not long moved back home to Alabama from Atlanta, Georgia. At the time, I was living in my grandmother’s spare bedroom while looking for a new place to hang my hat. It was a small room with just enough space for a bed, chest of drawers, and a TV. I spent many hours propped back on a pile of pillows on that old, lumpy bed building what would eventually become the most popular plugin I’ve ever built.
It wasn’t an ideal scenario, but I learned something during those days. It doesn’t matter where you are. It can be a coffee shop, a home office, or a tiny room where you can hear two different TVs blaring from elsewhere in the house. You can do creative work, regardless of your circumstances, when you just set your mind to it.
The Members plugin and its community have always held a special place in my heart. I’ve spent 10 years working on the project. Rarely has a day gone by in the last decade where I haven’t given some moment’s thought to the plugin.
It is hard to let go, but I must.
I have transferred ownership of Members and all of its add-ons to a new owner.
That new owner is Caseproof, which was founded in 2003 by Blair Williams. The company has been building WordPress plugins for over 10 years and is the team behind the MemberPress and Affiliate Royale WordPress plugins.
This was not an easy decision for me. Over 100,000 of you have put your faith and trust behind me over the years to maintain a quality role management plugin. However, it would not be fair for me to keep the plugin while not being able to put in the time and effort required to maintain it. That is something I cannot realistically do at this point in my life. I would rather see Members in the hands of a team that can devote the resources necessary to continue making it a great plugin.
Rest assured that I have talked with the new dev team about what I’d like to see and what my future plans were. While it is no longer my decision, I do hope they are able to use those ideas and improve upon them.
I have personally vetted the new company to make sure they do good work and are able to take on the responsibilities required in maintaining both the code and support aspects of Members. I want you all to be in good hands.
I hope you all give them the same trust that you have given me for the past 10 years.
Where is the new home for Members?
Members is now available through the MemberPress site. You can read their announcement here .
The team there has a support forum already set up for Members Pro users.
What will happen to memberships?
If you are currently a Members Pro customer, All-Access customer, or have purchased an individual Members add-on in the past year, you should receive communication in the near future (if you haven’t already) with the details about setting up an account on the new site. The Caseproof/MemberPress team will respect all existing memberships and provide support until your yearly membership has expired.
If you have any questions, feel free to message me in our Slack group or shoot over an email. I will be happy to help during this transition phase.
You will also still have access to the Theme Hybrid site and Slack for themes and other plugins. Your user account won’t disappear here unless you request to have it removed.
Is Theme Hybrid going away?
Definitely not. As I mentioned in the last blog post , Theme Hybrid will be returning to its $free theme-building roots. While I won’t be directly involved with the Members plugin any longer, the site itself will carry on.
It will likely be January 2020 before I can really kick-start movement on the new roadmap. Just hang in there a bit.