What is software?

Somebody ask me recently how software is defined and i found from my perspective a quite simple definition. The ISO Standard 9000 product term definition (in note 1) explains what products are:

• software (SW) 
• hardware (HW) 
• service 
• processed material 

So if you apply the method of elimination, it is quite simple to define SW:

Software is everything what is not hardware, not service or not processed material

All those four concepts are derived (skos:narrower) from product, feel free and put this in your ontology :)

CU

Stephan

LEAN and Sematic Web

Well long time is gone and i learned last year and this year really impotent stuff:

• LEAN: I participated in a training last year called EADS Green Belt. It tried to gave me the basics about Lean and Six Sigma. I call it try because now, more or less a year later, I understand more and more what is really behind lean. Especially the mindset which is required to implement lean in an organization/enterprise. It is about how the people in this organization handle problems and if they really eliminate the root causes or only some consequences.
• Semantic Web: The basics of semantic web are RDF/RDFS/OWL and the definition of knowledge by description logic. The essential part here is to understand it follows another paradigm. I work almost only with systems which are implement according the closed world assumption, but web technology follow an open world assumption and this has an big impact. Especially in the thinking, I was caught almost my whole live in the close world assumption thinking. Now I see both sides I can say I was just blind.

CU

Stephan