The Association of Software Professionals (ASP), formerly Association of Shareware Professionals, is a professional association for authors of shareware

Shareware

The term shareware is a proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability, or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a compact disc included with a...

 computer software

Computer software

Computer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it....

. It was formed in April 1987, and as of 2007, it describes itself as the world's #1 trade organization for independent software developers and vendors.

The ASP developed and maintain the Portable Application Description

Portable Application Description

Portable Application Description is a machine-readable document format designed by the Association of Shareware Professionals.It allows authors to provide product descriptions and specifications to online sources in a standard way, using a simple XML schema that allows webmasters and program...

 (PAD) format used to allow software authors to provide product descriptions and specifications to online sources in a standard way.

The ASP also played a role in making FILE ID.DIZ

FILE ID.DIZ

FILE_ID.DIZ is a plain text file containing a brief contentdescription of the archive in which it is included.It was originally used in archives distributed through bulletin board systems ....

 files a de-facto standard.

Members

The ASP has over a thousand members, including:

• WinZip Computing Inc. (creators of WinZip
  WinZip
  WinZip is a proprietary file archiver and compressor for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, developed by WinZip Computing...
  
  )
• Crossdown

External links

• http://www.asp-software.org/