Standardization within the antenna software initiative

At the writing of this paper, ACE, the European Network of Excellence on antennas, was 18 months old. During those 18 months, the software activity has shown a continuous evolution towards very precise and clear goals. Since we believe that these goals are also of importance to a more general community, in this paper, they are explained to the interested reader. Actually, all goals can be summarized into one word: standardization. The aim of the ASI (the Antenna Software Initiative within ACE), is to standardize the way antenna software researchers implement new modeling ideas. An idea itself can be conceived in complete "academic" freedom, but the implementation of the idea, the handling and use of the resulting software code, could follow European standards, as is already the case in many other fields of science.