  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.
