Knowware: the third star after Hardware and Software

TL;DR

This paper introduces 'knowware' as a new third pillar of IT, distinct from hardware and software, emphasizing its role as a knowledge commodity with specific architectures and development models.

Contribution

It proposes the concept of knowware, its architecture, lifecycle models, and integration techniques, advancing knowledge engineering and software co-development methods.

Findings

Knowware is a distinct knowledge commodity in IT.

Proposed lifecycle models for knowware development.

Introduced concepts of mixware and knowledge-based Web services.

Abstract

This book proposes to separate knowledge from software and to make it a commodity that is called knowware. The architecture, representation and function of Knowware are discussed. The principles of knowware engineering and its three life cycle models: furnace model, crystallization model and spiral model are proposed and analyzed. Techniques of software/knowware co-engineering are introduced. A software component whose knowledge is replaced by knowware is called mixware. An object and component oriented development schema of mixware is introduced. In particular, the tower model and ladder model for mixware development are proposed and discussed. Finally, knowledge service and knowware based Web service are introduced and compared with Web service. In summary, knowware, software and hardware should be considered as three equally important underpinnings of IT industry. Ruqian Lu is a professor of computer science of the Institute of Mathematics, Academy of Mathematics and System Sciences. He is a fellow of Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research interests include artificial intelligence, knowledge engineering and knowledge based software engineering. He has published more than 100 papers and 10 books. He has won two first class awards from the Academia Sinica and a National second class prize from the Ministry of Science and Technology. He has also won the sixth Hua Loo-keng Mathematics Prize.