SpeakOut! has always been a labour of love. Many years ago I was using the speakup petition plugin but it had some bugs, needed some features added and was out of date.
I tried everything to contact the original developer but couldn’t track them down. I am not sure they even used their real name.
WordPress plugins are all open source, so I “forked” (took the code and built on it) speakup and SpeakOut! was born.
The original developer did a fabulous job, but they would hardly recognise it these days. I have fixed and added loads of things and spent a lot of time on it. So much time, for nothing, that it was starting to get a bit of a chore…I actually don’t use the plugin myself, that campaign (which we won!) is long over.
I know how useful this plugin is, so rather than abandon SpeakOut! myself, I decided to make the Pro version, it will commit me to ongoing development. I really hope that the free version is very useful for activists. Having been part of many campaigns, I know that expenses often come out of people’s pockets.
For the rest of you, if SpeakOut! is useful, please upgrade, it encourages me to improve it.
FWIW, I detest the subscription license model ($x per month or year) so the Pro version of SpeakOut! is available for a one time ever payment.
Steve