Open Standards and Open Source for Agent-Based Systems

Bernard Burg, Centre de Recherche de Motorola Paris, Motorola, Jonathan Dale, Network Agents Research Group, Fujitsu Laboratories of America, Inc., and Steven Willmott, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Ecol Polytechnique F'd'rale de Lausanne

12/22/2008
(Original Publish Date: 2/9/2001)

The world is becoming more connected. Internet usage is growing explosively, mobile data services are reaching users worldwide and businesses are moving to the web to connect with the customers, suppliers and partners. Agent technology has the potential to play a key role in this revolution by automating processes, enriching system-system communication and bringing more intelligence service provision. To realise this potential, agents require standards, they need to communicate to discover their peers, to negotiate and to co-operate in an open environment where everybody can add their contribution when and how it is deemed appropriate. This article provides an update on the ongoing FIPA Agent standardisation effort at a time when agent standards seem more relevant than ever. Sections 2, 3 and 4 describe the new structure of FIPA, recent advances, the current set of specification and provide an overview of current open source implementations. Section 5 outlines ongoing and future activities and Section 6 concludes.