Association of Shareware Professionals

The Association of Software Professionals (ASP), formerly Association of Shareware Professionals, is a professional association for authors and developers of freeware, commercial, and shareware computer software. It was formed in April 1987, and as of 2012, is the most popular trade organization for independent software developers and vendors.

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. The PAD file specification is currently 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 software to create PAD files and the software to poll them for changes and updates is community effort provided by members of the ASP. The latest PAD specification, v4.0 was announced on December 1, 2012 in the organization's magazine, ASPECTS.

The ASP also played a role in making FILE ID.DIZ files a de facto standard.

In 2011, the ASP purchased the rights to the Software Industry Conference from the Software Industry Awards Foundation. The conference has been renamed ISVCon.

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