The Association of Software Professionals (ASP), formerly Association of Shareware Professionals, was a

professional association A professional association (also called a professional body, professional organization, or professional society) is a group that usually seeks to advocacy, further a particular profession, the interests of individuals and organisations engaged in ...

for authors and developers of

freeware Freeware is software, often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the free ...

, commercial, and

shareware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer. ...

computer software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

. It was formed in April 1987, and for a time, it was considered as the most popular

trade organization A trade association, also known as an industry trade group, business association, sector association or industry body, is an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific Industry (economics), industry. Through collabor ...

for independent

software developers A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles Software development, ''software developer'' and Software engineering, ''software engineer' ...

and vendors.

Overview

The ASP developed and maintain the Portable Application Description (PAD) format used to allow software authors to provide product descriptions and specifications to online sources in a standard way. As of 2021, the PAD file specification was utilized by over 40,000 software publishers and a 1000+ PAD supported software catalog websites. The PAD system is popular because web sites can pull updated data from a single file stored on the software author's site. The final release of the PAD specification, v4.0 was released to the public domain as of January 2022. The ASP also played a role in making

FILE_ID.DIZ FILE_ID.DIZ is a plain-text file containing a brief description of the content of the archive formats, archive to which it belongs. Such files were originally used in archives distributed through bulletin board systems (BBSes) and is still used ...

files a

de facto standard A ''de facto'' standard is a custom or convention that is commonly used even though its use is not required. is a Latin phrase (literally " of fact"), here meaning "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, ...

. In 2011, the ASP purchased the rights to the Software Industry Conference from the Software Industry Awards Foundation. The conference was renamed ISVCon.ISVCon About Information
After a 34-year run, the ASP announced on their website about their decision to cease operations on December 31, 2021, following a membership decision to dissolve the organization. No reason was given with their announcement.

References

External links

* Organizations established in 1987 Organizations disestablished in 2021 Businesspeople in software Technology trade associations {{prof-assoc-stub