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ASP Membership Requirements
The following are the general standards that ALL ASP authors (full members)
have agreed to follow. Each was passed by at least a 2/3 vote of those
members voting and is binding on all authors. They consist of a support
policy, a policy on payments, a policy on no crippled software, an
Ombudsman policy and some miscellaneous items:
**** ASP SOFTWARE SUPPORT POLICY ****
1. All ASP members' shareware products must provide support (included in the
purchase price) for a minimum of three months from the date of registration.
If the support is by telephone, there may be a limitation on BOTH the total
connect time and the period after purchase during which it is available
without additional cost so long as the connect time is at least 30 minutes
during the required three months. Support may be provided for a fee after
this initial period has elapsed. The support policy must be clearly stated in
the shareware documentation.
2. Support during the initial period may be one or more of the following:
- mail support
- telephone support (if this is the only support provided, at a
minimum an answering machine must be available 4 hours per day; this
support may be limited to thirty minutes of connect time at the
option of the author)
- for communications products, or ones associated to a communication
product by BBS or major communications service
- by any alternate method approved by the Board of Directors by a two
thirds vote (of those directors voting)
3. The minimum level of support required by this policy involves answering
questions and fixing serious bugs during the minimum three month period. For
problems involving a specific hardware or software environment or feature, the
author may choose not to modify the program. In that case, if the report is
within three months after purchase, then the author shall offer to refund the
user's purchase price.
4. Any money sent to an author to register an unsupported product shall be
promptly returned with an explanation that the product in question is no
longer supported.
5. Known incompatibilities with other software or hardware and major or
unusual program limitations are noted in the documentation that comes with
the shareware (evaluation) program.
**** ASP REGISTRATION PAYMENT POLICY *****
1. The Documentation must clearly describe how to register the product and
what goods and/or services the user will receive for registering.
2. Fees must be expressed in fixed monetary amounts. Voluntary payments or
contributions may not be solicited, although phrasing such as "if you use
and like this product, please register" is allowed.
3. Multiple levels of registration may be set, as long as each level
individually satisfies the above two requirements.
**** ASP POLICY ON NO CRIPPLING ****
The principle behind shareware is "try before you buy." ASP believes that
users have a right to try a fully functioning shareware program in their
regular computing environment. Accordingly, ASP authors agree that:
(1) The executable files (and/or items linked in with executables)
in their shareware and registered versions will be the same (with
the exceptions noted below)
(2) All the program's features will be fully documented.
(3) Registration encouragement procedures which in the judgment of
the Board are either unreasonable or unprofessional are not allowed.
Registration Reminder Screens should (if used):
1) be displayed no more than twice each time the program
runs (or twice per day for long-running programs such as
TSR's).
2) not require more than two keystrokes to bypass.
3) not have a forced minimum display time of more than three
seconds. In other words, the RRS itself should not take
control of the computer away from the user for more than
three seconds.
Practices such as creating undocumented hidden files or printing
a registration form without the user's knowledge or consent are
prohibited. It is NOT necessary to have any of the above as a
simple "Strike Any Key To Continue" is the least objectional to
the user.
(4) Solicitation of sales of a non-shareware version (NSV) of a
shareware program may be made in the evaluation version only if it
meets the following guidelines:
(a) Features of the NSV not in the shareware version must not be
detailed in the body of the documentation. An appendix or
separate file listing the features may be used.
(b) The shareware version may not present any features of the NSV
during its operation such as in stubbed-out menus or in on-line
help. A solicitation of the NSV and its features may be
presented in any Registration Reminder Screens and on order
forms.
(c) The names of the NSV and the shareware program must be
distinctly different. Suffixes such as 'Plus', 'Pro',
'Gold', 'LAN', etc. meet this distinction. Numeric version
or suffix numbers do not meet this distinction.
(d) The shareware version may not be designed or implemented in
such a fashion that, in the opinion of 60% of the Board of
Directors, it gives the user the impression that the
shareware version's major purpose is to sell copies of the NSV.
Exceptions to a strict interpretation of this policy are as follows:
- to save disk space, tutorial and additional explanatory
material may be left out of the shareware documentation.
- the shareware version may have registration encouragement
procedures absent from the registered version (or which can be
disabled with a code only provided to registered users).
- the registered version may include sample files not included
in the shareware version.
- if source code is offered with the registered version,
it may be withheld from the shareware version.
- the author may provide two shareware versions: one a small
version which the author designates the distributed version
in normal circumstances (e.g. language tools in C only
available in one model) so long as the full shareware version
is available from some public source (possibly for a small
distribution fee) and may be copied for trial purposes.
The small version's documentation must clearly describe
how users may obtain the full shareware version.
- registered users may be provided bonus utilities unrelated to
(and which do not change) the basic functionality of the program
- registered users may be given utilities which provide a
convenience but which are not essential
- exceptions approved by the ASP board of directors
by a 60% vote of those voting
- It is an acceptable registration incentive to market the first
product of a series as shareware and use the remaining products as
registration incentives, so long as the remaining products are
merely "more of the same" when compared to the first product. The
author may charge a single registration fee for the set, or may use
varying levels of registration to allow customers to obtain the
original product and/or remaining products.
**** ASP OMBUDSMAN POLICY ****
1. The board shall set up the office of Ombudsman and appoint someone to
that position. The Ombudsman's sole role shall be to mediate disputes
between ASP members and their customers. The Ombudsman shall report
to the board situations where he feels board action or knowledge is
appropriate.
2. All ASP members and vendor associate members are required to cooperate
with the Ombudsman when approached by him/her.
3. The Shareware version of any shareware program produced by ASP author
members must contain the following text as part of some file on the
disk. (The shareware version means the one intended for trial use).
"This program is produced by a member of the Association of Shareware
Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the shareware
principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a
shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member
directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you
resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide
technical support for members' products. Please write to the ASP
Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI USA 49442-9427, Fax
616-788-2765, or send a CompuServe message via CompuServe Mail to ASP
Ombudsman 70007,3536."
4. Inclusion of Ombudsman statement.
a. The Ombudsman statement shall be included in the shareware version
in a location clearly accessible to the evaluator.
b. Any registered versions which contain reference to the ASP or use
the ASP logo must contain the Ombudsman statement but they may be
in a written form rather than on disk.
c. If the ASP logo or name is used by any ASP approved vendor in any
ads/catalogs etc , then that vendor must include the OMB
statement with their catalogs and newsletters and is encouraged
to include it with any disks sold containing ASP member programs.
d. Members are free to include the Ombudsman statement in printed
documentation, ads and other mailings if they wish.
5. The first sentence may be replaced by "<Member's name> is a member of
the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP)." If a member's
company qualifies under the company name policy, the company name may
be used instead of <member's name>.
6. ASP approved vendors must include the following statement with their
catalogs and newsletters and are encouraged to include it with all
disks sold:
"Company X is an Approved Vendor and a member of the Association
of Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the
shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve
a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the
member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can
help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not
provide technical support for members' products. Please write to the
ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI USA 49442-9427, Fax
616-788-2765, or send a CompuServe message via CompuServe Mail to ASP
Ombudsman 70007,3536."
7. The Ombudsman statement may not be hidden in a file or other manner
which 60% of the board of directors regards as obscure.
8. ASP approved BBS Systems must include the following statement as a
system bulletin (or as a downloadable file, if and only if an online
bulletin is not feasible), Which is to be accessible by all callers:
"<Name of BBS> is an Approved BBS and a member of the Association
of Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that
the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve
a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the
member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can
help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not
provide technical support for members' products. Please write to the
ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI USA 49442-9427, Fax
616-788-2765, or send a CompuServe message via CompuServe Mail to ASP
Ombudsman 70007,3536."
9. If posted as a bulletin, the title of said bulletin shall be "ASP
Ombudsman Statement"; if posted as a downloadable file, the filename
shall be "ASPOMB.xxx" (where "xxx" is representative of either a
text ar archive filename extension.)
**** ASP MISC STANDARDS ****
The program has been thoroughly tested by the author and should not be
harmful to other files or hardware if used properly.
Any discussion of the shareware concept and of registration requirements is
done in a professional and positive manner.
The program author will respond to people who send registration payments, as
promised in the program's documentation. At a minimum, the author will
acknowledge receipt of all payments.
The author will keep the ASP apprised of changes in mailing address and of
any changes in the status of his/her programs to:
ASP Executive Director
545 Grover Road
Muskegon MI 49442-9427