MIL-STD-498 (Military-Standard-498) was a United States military standard whose purpose was to "establish uniform requirements for software development and documentation." It was released Nov. 8, 1994, and replaced DOD-STD-2167A, DOD-STD-7935A, and DOD-STD-1703. It was meant as an interim standard, to be in effect for about two years until a commercial standard was developed.
Unlike previous efforts like the seminal "2167A" which was mainly focused on the risky new area of software development, "498" was the first attempt at a truly comprehensive description of the system level life-cycle. It was the baseline that all of the ISO, IEEE, and related efforts after it replaced. It also contains much of the material that the subsequent professionalization of project management covered in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). The document "MIL-STD-498 Overview and Tailoring Guidebook" is 98 pages. The "MIL-STD-498 Application and Reference Guidebook" is 516 pages. And then there were the document templates, or Data Item Descriptions, described below, bringing documentation and process order that could scale to projects of the size humans were then conducting (aircraft, battleships, canals, dams, factories, satellites, submarines, etc.).
It was one of the few military standards that survived the "Perry Memo", then U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry's 1994 memorandum commanding the discontinuation of defense standards. However, it was canceled on May 27, 1998 and replaced by J-STD-016 and IEEE 12207. Several programs outside of the U.S. military continued to use the standard, due to familiarity and perceived advantages over alternative standards, such as free availability of the standards documents.
A key component of the standard is 22 Data Item Descriptions (DIDs). Each DID generically describes the required content of a data item, a document that describes the software or some aspect of the software life-cycle. These documents could take many forms, from source code, to installation scripts, to various electronic and paper reports, and the contracting party (e.g., the government) is encouraged to specify acceptable formats. The set of data item descriptions, once tailored for a specific contract, then become Contract Data Requirement List items (CDRLs) that represent the deliverable items of a contract. Exactly which data items are required for delivery depends on the nature of the project.
The DIDs are: