Resolutions of the London meeting
April 2 – 6, 2001.

1.        FIPA notes the report of the Board of Directors concerning

·         The times and locations of the next 2 meetings in 2001: 

                Proposals are welcomed from potential hosts for the January meeting in Europe. More precise times and locations will be sent to Members as soon as they become available.

·         The increased responsibility of the FIPA Secretariat on running the mailing lists, web site, and supporting FIPA’s promotional process.

·         The appointment of Steve Willmott and Hiroki Suguri to the Membership and Nomination Committee, chaired by Geoff Arnold.

·         To incorporate the P2P SIG back into the Liaison SIG, due to relative lack of perceived activity by the Peer-to-Peer Working Group.

·         The carrying out of the general vote for continuation of FIPA beyond its initial 5 years by fax ballot by July 18. The outlines of the process will be distributed to the official representatives of the member companies by April 20.

·         The proposal of a new IPR policy, based on the policy of the IETF, ensuring unencumbered use of FIPA specifications and technology.

·         Each TC and WG chair is requested to provide two overview slides within one week after the FIPA meetings to the FIPA secretariat: one on the scope and workplan and one on current results and future work. These will be added as part of the FIPA slide pack and to the web site.

2.        FIPA approves the Secretariat’s report of the previous three months (f-out-00082).

3.        FIPA approves the report of the Image Committee (f-out-00086).

4.        Resolutions of Technical Committees, Working Groups, and Special Interest Groups

TC Architecture Resolutions 

TC Architecture proposes that FIPA adopt the following resolutions. 

• To continue progress on architectural elements to support policies

• To incorporate a service model into the Abstract Architecture

• To encourage the development of an abstract content representation language

TC Architecture extends its thanks and appreciation to Geoff Arnold, Fabio Bellifemine, Rony Bershadsky, David Bonnefoy, Jeff Bradshaw, Maria Degch, Tim Finin, Sergio Gaio, Dominic Greenwood, Lalana Kagal, Heimo Laamanen, David Levine, Antonio Lopes, Robert Luna, Emil Lupu, Ben Mankin, Jim Odell, Konstaninos Prouskas, Mathys Panhuysen, Dennis Pierre, Morris Sloman, Hiroki Suguri, Andy Spydell, Denis Trcek, Steve Willmott and Francis McCabe

TC Agreement Management Resolutions 

TC Agreement Management proposes that FIPA adopt the following resolutions.

• To submit Service Level Agreement Workplan

·         Re-express the FIPA ACL and the interaction protocols in terms of an explicit model of joint commitments

·         Within the context of a particular interaction protocol and society (with its conventions), define what types of agreements are being formed, either implicitly or explicitly.

·         Create specifications for agent agreements that are sufficiently flexible to capture the various forms of agreements and obligations that may be established among agents

• To publish draft specifications PC00090A on the website.
• To distribute fourth version of the SLA Workplan on agree@fipa.org and to submit it to FAB by May 1^st.

TC Agreements gratefully thanks Bernard Burg, Patricia Charlton, Jonathan Dale, Tim Finin, Rob Kremer, Marcus Huber, Frank McCabe, Misty Nodine, Robert Luna, Mathijs Panhuijsen, Jeremy Pitt, Jean Sallantin, Steven Willmott.

TC Gateways Resolutions 

TC Gateways proposes that FIPA adopt the following resolutions.

·         To submit the preliminary version of 'FIPA Agent Message Transport Envelope Representation in Bit-Efficient Encoding Specification', jointly produced by Sonera and University of Helsinki, to the FAB for transition to Experimental status by FIPA 22 (by 25 June 2001).

·         Update the MTS specification to provide buffering, transformation and transport-behaviour capabilities (by FIPA 22).

·         Request the FAB to address the process problem relating to updating Experimental specifications (by 20 April 2001).

·         Form a task force to update the Nomadic Application Support specification (by 12 February 2001).

·         Update and discuss the message transport behaviour and transport interoperability proposals (by start of FIPA 22)

·         Move the Device Ontology submission to Preliminary status (with immediate effect).

·         Capture the requirements addressed by the Disconnected Mode Support proposal, and seek ways of satisfying them via existing specifications (by start of FIPA 22)

·         To aim for producing specifications, as per the workplan dates (preliminary specifications by 07/01, experimental by 01/02).

TC Gateway gives special thanks to: David Levine, Donald Steiner, Heikki Helin, Heimo Laamanen, Jamie Lawrence, John Shepherdson, Michael Berger, Phil Buckle, Santtu Toivonen, Satoshi Nishiyama, Stefano Campadello, Steve Willmott, David Bonnefoy, Mathijs Panhuijsen, Menno Jonkers, Fabio Bellifemine, Milla Makelainen, Michael Watzke, Denis Trcek, Ben Mankin, Rony Bershadsky, Maria Deych

AgentCities WG resolutions 

The AgentCities WG proposes that FIPA adopt the following resolutions:

·         Support the proposal for a workplan on compliance testing currently being drafted

·         Submit the draft Agentcities test suite document as an input document to FIPA representing a first contribution to the compliance testing work.

·         Put discussion of an XML based content language on hold until various content language solutions (DAML, RDF, XML etc) have been further investigated / tested.

AgentCities WG thanks all those who attended discussions on Thursday afternoon, as well as all of those regularly contributing to email discussions.

Resolutions for Product Design and Manufacturing WG  

The Product Design and Manufacturing WG proposes that FIPA adopt the following resolutions:

·         To continue the new task of defining a FIPA abstract architecture for collaborative holonic enterprise as per the ideas and plan developed at the May 2001 London meeting.

·         To continue actual work on the agent-based holonic enterprise project work and to thank the following people for volunteering to make contributions by 12 July, 2001: Francois Arlabosse, Phil Buckle, Monique Calisti, Daniel DeLuca, Rob Hadingham, Alexander Haemmerle, Menno Jonkers, Ben Mankin, Nik Mehandjiev, Christian de Sainte Marie, Jim Odell, Michal  Pechoucek, Rosario Sorbello, Mihaela Ulieru.

·         To investigate how we can support the testing of AUML as a modeling technique for designing agent-based manufacturing applications.

·         To hold an interim meeting in Prague on 12, 13 July to continue the work begun on supply chain definition.

·         The PD&M WG endorses and encourages FIPA to continue to pursue a formal liaison relationship with the holonic-manufacturing systems (HMS) consortium.

·         Product Design & Manufacturing WG would like to thank Mihaela Ulieru, Pavel Vrba, Jim Odell, and Vladimir Marik for giving Supply-Chain, Planning/scheduling, and control system presentations at this meeting.

·         Product Design & Manufacturing WG would like to thank all the participants at this meeting for their thoughtful contribution to brainstorming the elements of agent-based supply chain systems

·         The PD&M WG would like to express their thanks to Nina Berry for continuing to organize the PD&M WG meetings.

·         The PD&M WG would like to express appreciation to Ilog and Emorphia for their commercial-tool support in the supply chain development effort.

·         The PD&M WG would like to thank Professor Douglas Norrie (from the University of Calgary) for his strong support with attracting new Companies as industrial partners on the Holonic Enterprise work, as well as for his financial support to attendees.

FIPA Architecture Board Resolutions 

The FAB proposes that FIPA adopt the following resolutions.

·         To approve the Security Workplan and to promote the Security SIG to a Working Group

·         To issue a request for proposals and feedback for a process of managing future FIPA bake-offs

·         To issue a request for proposals and feedback for developing conformance test suites

·         To alter the FAB working principles document to state that advancement to Standard status requires an approved conformance test for that specification

·         To investigate a FAB process for coherently accepting updates for Experimental status specifications

·         To give feedback to TC Gateway on FIPA00014 (Nomadic Application Support)

The FAB would like to thank the membership for their contributions throughout the week.

Ontology SIG resolutions 

The Ontology SIG proposes that FIPA adopt the following resolutions:

·         to encourage the formation of a workplan on handling ontology

Security SIG resolutions 

The Security SIG proposes that FIPA adopt the following resolutions:

·         That the Call For Information be refocused and re-issued.

·         That an interim meeting and, or workshop be considered as a vehicle to engage further active participation from interested parties in the area of Multi-Agent Security.

·         That a FIPA white-paper on agent security (informational output document) be completed and submitted for discussion at the 22nd meeting (an initial draft to be distributed by the end of April 2001).

·         That FIPA members interested in the topic of multi-agent system security provide comment and feedback on the security reflector (email: security@fipa.org ) or to the chair, Stefan Poslad (email: security_chair@fipa.org ).

The Security SIG thanks the following for their input at this: David Bonnefoy, Thierry Bouron, Monique Calisti, Patricia Charlton, Jim Cunningham, Tim Finin, Lalana Kagal, Robert Luna, Ben Mankia, Misty Nodine, Mathys Panhuysen, Leonid Tikov, Denis Trcek, Alexander Yip, and Stefan Poslad.  (Apologies are offered to anyone whose name was omitted.)

Liaison SIG resolutions 

The Liaison SIG proposes that FIPA adopt the following resolutions:

·         To issue the liaison report, (f-out-00085.doc) reporting on the status of external activities of interest to FIPA as presented at this meeting. The following implementations were reported: APRIL, Comtec, FIPA-OS, JADE, JAS, LEAP, TIIERA, Tryllian, Zeus. The following activities were also discussed: Holonic Enterprise, P2P, GRID, DAML, AgentCities (Europe), and ‘UDDI, OASIS, BMPI and other related Standards supporting Web Services and Collaborative Commerce’.

·         To forward discussion material on open source licenses to chat@fipa.org to further understand the issues.

The Liaison SIG thanks all contributors and invites them to provide updates at the Sendai meeting. All members are encouraged to share ‘related special-interest activities’ at future Liaison SIG meetings.

5.        FIPA thanks the following companies and individuals for carrying out the Bake-Off and advancing the level of FIPA interoperability and substantiating the FIPA specifications:

The results of the Bake-off are reported in:

• f-in-00025.doc  Bake-off Report from the London, April 2001 Meeting

• f-in-00026.doc  Bake-off Suggestions from the London, April 2001 Meeting

• f-in-00027.doc  Bake-off Message Log from the London, April 2001 Meeting

• f-in-00028.doc  Bake-off Work Plan

6.        FIPA thanks the following individuals for participating in and making valuable contributions to the FIPA Workshop:

as well as Jeff Bradshaw (Univ. of West Florida) for chairing the workshop. The presentation materials of the workshop will be made available on the FIPA web site.

7.        FIPA gratefully thanks Imperial College for offering FIPA excellent meeting facilities and friendly support in London and for hosting its 21^st meeting, in particular: Abe Mamdani, Shahareen Hilmy, Jeremy Pitt, Kareh Kamyab, Yasmine Arafa, Bernard Reddy (Rm. 404 facilities), Dave Patrick & John Milne (technical support), Imperial College’s Conference Office, and last but not least, Jennifer Pitt of Inbound Travel.

8.        FIPA invites its membership and contributors to the FIPA process to its 22^nd meeting, July 23-27, 2001 in Sendai, Japan to be hosted by ComTec.