Encyclopedia > Association of Shareware Professionals
The Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP) was formed in April 1987. As of 2007, it describes itself as the world's #1 Trade Organization for independent software developers and vendors.[1] This article or section should be merged with professional body In countries where the legal system entitles defendants to a jury by their peers, the general public may not be considered sufficiently knowledgeable in a field of practice to act as a peer in some legal cases. ... Look up shareware in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... An industry trade group is generally a public relations organization funded, founded and formed by corporations that operate in a specific industry. ... A software developer is an entity, either a company or individual, that creates software. ...
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. Portable Application Description is a machine-readable document format designed by the Association of Shareware Professionals. ...
The ASP also played a role in making FILE_ID.DIZ files a de-facto standard. FILE_ID.DIZ is a plain text file containing a brief content description of the archive in which it is included. ... De facto is a Latin expression that means in fact or in practice. It is commonly used as opposed to de jure (meaning by law) when referring to matters of law or governance or technique (such as standards), that are found in the common experience as created or developed without...
Usually shareware differs from open source software in that requests of voluntary shareware fees are made, often within the program itself, and in that source code for shareware programs is generally not available in a form that would allow others to extend the program.
Shareware is rarely found on non-Macintosh Unix-like operating systems, which may be due to the corporate use of Unix until the advent of Linux, which championed free software as opposed to shareware.
However, after that the shareware model began to degrade as the term was used by commercial startups offering (sometimes substandard) commercial software and labeling non-functional or limited demo versions (known as crippleware) as shareware.
Shareware programs are just like programs you find in major stores, catalogs, and other places where people purchase software -- except you get to use them, on your own computer, before paying for them.
Shareware users who need support often speak directly to the actual developer of the program, who is intimately familiar with how it operates and therefore can provide excellent technical support.
Shareware authors also retain complete control over their programs -- a powerful incentive to programmers who have developed products from the beginning, and would rather see their fate determined by technical, rather than marketing considerations.
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