FOUNDATION FOR INTELLIGENT PHYSICAL AGENTS

Document title	Resolutions from the Pensacola, USA, October 2002 Meeting
Document number	f-out-00135	Document source	Board of Directors
Document status	Preliminary	Date of this status	Date as: 2002/10/18
Change history
	Initial draft

Resolutions of the 27^th FIPA meeting in Pensacola, FL
October 14-18, 2002.

1. FIPA recognizes the expiration of the terms of:

Heimo Laamanen (Sonera),

Francis McCabe (Fujitsu), and

Donald Steiner (WebV2)

as members of the Board of Directors. FIPA thanks them for their valuable efforts in helping FIPA to achieve its goals so far and especially Francis McCabe for his FIPA president-ship in 2002/03.

The Board acknowledges the resignation of the vice-president Bernard Burg, and thanks HP and Bernard Burg for the excellent work performed during his 3 years on the Board of FIPA.

The following persons are continuing their terms on the Board of Directors:

Michael Berger (Siemens), and

Monique Calisti (Whitestein)

2. Following an election held by the General Assembly, FIPA appoints to the Board of Directors as per vote by the General Assembly:

Menno Jonkers (Tryllian), and

Michael Kerstetter (Boeing)

3. FIPA revises its Statutes (f-out-00060B).  Proposed changes to the following sections in the statutes were voted on and unanimously approved at the meeting:

· Article 7.2 Board of Directors - Candidates - “The Directors are selected from among the Members' employees. Up to one board member may be an employee of an associate member, all other board members are employees of principal members.”

4. FIPA notes the report of the Board of Directors concerning:

· FIPA Board of Directors appointsas the 5^th Director of the board:

Stefan Poslad (Queen Mary)

      An election will be held at the next General Assembly.

· The election of the following officers and positions of the Board of Directors as per the FIPA Statutes:

President	Menno Jonkers
Vice-President	Michael Kerstetter
Secretary	Stefan Poslad
Treasurer	Jacquie Kelly
Chair, Finance and Audit Committee	Michael Berger
Chair, Membership and Nominating Committee	Michael Berger
Chair, Image Committee	Monique Calisti

· The composition of the Finance and Audit Committee:

Name	Affiliation	Country
Michael Berger (Chair)	Siemens	Germany
Heimo Laamanen	Sonera	Finland
(being contacted)

· The composition of the Membership and Nomination Committee

Name	Affiliation	Country
Michael Berger (Chair)	Siemens	Germany
Farooq Ahmad	ComTec	Japan
James Odell	Odell Corp.	US

· The composition of the FAB

Name	Affiliation	Country
Fabio Bellifemine (Chair)	TI Lab	Italy
Jonathan Dale	Fujitsu Labs US	US
David Levine	IBM	US
(being invited)
(being invited)
(being invited)

· The board recognizes the extraordinary contribution of the following FIPA members to FIPA’s goals over the last year:

Jonathan Dale

Fabio Bellifemine

Hiroki Suguri

· The board proposes the merge of the Liaison special interest group into the Image committee and hand over the responsibilities of the Liaison SIG to the Image committee.

• The board proposes to exclude HiFlier and Istituto per la Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica from membership.

· The board recommends the update of the membership of the FIPA Advisory Board. The board asked the FIPA Secretariat for creating a new mailing list. The following members will be appointed:

Jeff Bradshaw (IHMC)

Bernard Burg (HP)

Tim Finin (UMBC)

Heimo Laamanen (Sonera)

Abe Mamdani (Imperial College)

Francis McCabe (Fujitsu)

Donald Steiner (WebV2)

• The Board recommends the secretariat and the treasurer to report monthly to the chair of the Finance and Audit committee about:
• Employment of time (what is more or less expensive in the secretariat costs, how to decompose them, etc.)
• Expenses and current balance sheets

• The board recommends that TC Ad Hoc be made a Working Group.

• The board recommends that the Security WG be made a Technical Committee named TC “Security, Trust and Privacy”.
• The times and locations of the next 2 meetings in 2003:

Meeting	Dates	Location	Country	Host
28^th	Feb 10^th–12^th 2003	Palermo	Italy	Engineering Informatica
29^th	May 19^th – 21^st 2003	Fukuoka	Japan	IAS

5. FIPA approves the Secretariat’s report of the previous three months (f-out-00132).

FIPA requests that the secretariat remind all committee chairs to update their relevant sections of the FIPA website with current information.

6. On the proposal of the Finance and Audit Committee, FIPA approves:

• The 2001-2002 Accounts (f-out-00129)
• The 2001-2002 Balance Sheet (f-out-00130)
• The 2002-2003 Budget (f-out-00131)

7. FIPA appoints KPMG as auditors for the 2002-2003 accounts.

8. Resolutions of Technical Committees, Working Groups, and Special Interest Groups:

FIPA Architecture Board Resolutions

The FAB (FIPA Architecture Board) recommends FIPA to approve the following resolutions:

• Approve the promotion of document no. 35 FIPA Subscribe Interaction Protocol Specification from the status of Deprecrated to the status of eXperimental
• Approve the new document no. 94 FIPA QoS Ontology Specification that contains the subset of document no. 14 with the definition of the QoS ontology
• Approve the promotion to informative status of the following 7 documents as indicated by X2S (see X2S resolutions for the list of documents)
• Approve the demotion to deprecated of the 3 documents as indicated by X2S (see X2S resolutions for the list of documents)
• Approve the promotion to standard status, via a ballot vote of the membership for the entire group of documents, of the following 23 documents as indicated by X2S (see X2S resolutions for the list of documents) with the following motivation:  
• FIPA was established in 1996 as an international non-profit association of companies that agree to share efforts to produce standard specifications of generic agent technologies in a timely fashion, internationally agreed, usable across a large number of applications, so that a high level of interoperability across applications is achieved. Since then, FIPA counted more than 60 members from more than 20 different countries-worldwide and generated a set of specifications that went through 3 cycles of review: FIPA97, FIPA98, FIPA 2000.  Several distinct agent platforms, applications, and collaborative projects have been, and are continuing to be, based upon the FIPA specifications; the core set of the specifications have been used for a number of years and they are robust and effective enough to be promoted to Standard. The X2S TC was created at the 24^th FIPA meeting in Lausanne and it went through 3 iterations of accepting comments from the membership and improving the specifications. FAB believes that these specifications are now stable, mature, well understood and ready for commercial implementation and deployment. Therefore, FAB invites all the membership to approve the promotion of all the following specifications to the Standard status and spread their use both in business and academic environments.
• Appoint the FIPA Secretariat as the duly designated delegate to conduct the ballot for promotion to standard according to the process indicated in the FIPA Specification Policy, f-out-00003A. In particular the ballot will be announced and opened on the 4^th of November 2002 and it will be closed on the 2^nd of December.

TC X2S Resolutions

The X2S Technical Committee proposes that FIPA adopt the following resolutions:

• Recommend FIPA to publish the minutes of this X2S meeting and all the modified specifications in the public X2S area of the FIPA Web site for information to the entire community. All membership is invited to carefully consider all the approved changes that, in some cases, break compatibility of the existing implementations.
• Recommend FIPA to publish as an output document of X2S the list of symbols defined in the specs
• Recommend FIPA apply to IANA for registration of the ‘fipa’ name space.
• Recommend FAB to produce a guideline document for maintenance of the specifications and publish it on the public area of the Web site (see for instance the doc. no. 61 and doc. no. 37)
• Recommend FIPA to publish the PDF files of all the specification documents in a format that is easy to print both on US Letter and A4 format.
• X2S has been through 3 iterations of accepting comments from the membership and improving the specifications. X2S now feels that the specifications are stable and ready for release. FAB has approved the specifications and therefore, X2S now asks the membership to approve these specifications for standard. X2S appoints Jonathan Dale to finalize the documents (editorial changes and final ChangeLog table) by the 4^th November 2002 for release as the FIPA standards for 2002. The full list of specifications is the following:

Identifier	Title	Go to Standard
XC00001	FIPA Abstract Architecture Specification	Y
XC00007	FIPA Content Languages Specification	N => deprecated
XC00008	FIPA SL Content Language Specification	Y
XC00009	FIPA CCL Content Language Specification	keep in X, need more analysis
XC00010	FIPA KIF Content Language Specification	keep in X, need more analysis
XC00011	FIPA RDF Content Language Specification	keep in X, need more analysis
XC00014	FIPA Nomadic Application Support Specification	go to Informative output document
XC00023	FIPA Agent Management Specification	Y
XC00025	FIPA Interaction Protocol Library Specification	N => deprecated
XC00026	FIPA Request Interaction Protocol Specification	Y
XC00027	FIPA Query Interaction Protocol Specification	Y
XC00028	FIPA Request When Interaction Protocol Specification	Y
XC00029	FIPA Contract Net Interaction Protocol Specification	Y
XC00030	FIPA Iterated Contract Net Interaction Protocol Specification	Y
XC00031	FIPA English Auction Interaction Protocol Specification	keep in X, need more analysis
XC00032	FIPA Dutch Auction Interaction Protocol Specification	keep in X, need more analysis
XC00033	FIPA Brokering Interaction Protocol Specification	Y
XC00034	FIPA Recruiting Interaction Protocol Specification	Y
XC00035	FIPA Subscribe Interaction Protocol Specification	Y
XC00036	FIPA Propose Interaction Protocol Specification	Y
XC00037	FIPA Communicative Act Library Specification	Y
XC00061	FIPA ACL Message Structure Specification	Y
XC00067	FIPA Agent Message Transport Service Specification	Y
XC00069	FIPA ACL Message Representation in Bit-Efficient Specification	Y
XC00070	FIPA ACL Message Representation in String Specification	Y
XC00071	FIPA ACL Message Representation in XML Specification	Y
XC00075	FIPA Agent Message Transport Protocol for IIOP Specification	Y
XC00076	FIPA Agent Message Transport Protocol for WAP Specification	N => deprecated
XC00079	FIPA Agent Software Integration Specification	go to Informative output document
XC00080	FIPA Personal Travel Assistance Specification	go to Informative output document
XC00081	FIPA Audio-Visual Entertainment and Broadcasting Specification	go to Informative output document
XC00082	FIPA Network Management and Provisioning Specification	go to Informative output document
XC00083	FIPA Personal Assistant Specification	go to Informative output document
XC00084	FIPA Agent Message Transport Protocol for HTTP Specification	Y
XC00085	FIPA Agent Message Transport Envelope Representation in XML Specification	Y
XC00086	FIPA Ontology Service Specification	keep in X, need more analysis
XC00088	FIPA Agent Message Transport Envelope Representation in Bit Efficient Specification	Y
XC00091	FIPA Device Ontology Specification	go to Informative output document
XC00092	FIPA Message Buffering Service Specification	keep in X, need more analysis
XC00093	FIPA Messaging Interoperability Service Specification	keep in X, need more analysis
XC00094	FIPA QoS Specification	Y

Statistics:

Status	Number of Specs	Percentage / Total
I	7	17.07%
X	8	19.51%
D	3	7.32%
S	23	56.10%
S+I	30	73.17%
S+I+D	33	80.49%
ALL	41	100.00%

• Thank all those people who have contributed to the meeting by sending comments or by actively participating to the discussion and, in particular, the editors of the documents: Fabio Bellifemine, Jonathan Dale, Jim Odell, Misty Nodine, Heikki Helin, Hiroki Suguri.
• The X2S has concluded its mandate and met all the milestones of the workplan approved by FAB, therefore X2S asks the FAB and the BoD to dissolve the X2S TC.

TC Ad-hoc Resolutions 

TC Ad-hoc proposes that FIPA adopt the following resolutions.

· Continue to write the white paper about relevant technologies for FIPA agents in mobile ad-hoc environments and possible solutions (description of relevant ad-hoc and P2P technologies, possible approaches for FIPA, concrete implementations, and other important issues like security and profiles). The focus concerning the relevant ad-hoc and P2P technologies will be on BT-SDP, JXTA, JINI, and UPnP. Contribute to the white paper over TC ad-hoc reflector.

· Change the status of the group from TC to WG, with approval FIPA board.

· Modify and deliver new workplan at next FIPA meeting.

· Thanks to: Fabio Bellifemine, Heikki Helin, Heimo Laamanen, and Michael Berger.

TC Semantics Resolutions

TC Semantics proposes that FIPA adopt the following resolutions:

• Thanks to those who participated in the meetings: Jeff Bradshaw, Ahmad Farooq, Mike Kerstetter, Misty Nodine, Makoto Okada, Jim Odell, Jeremy Pitt, Von-Wun Soo, Bobbin Teagarten, Ingo Tim, and Frank McCabe. 

TC Services Resolutions

The TC WebServices proposes that FIPA adopt the following resolutions:

• To investigate DAML-S as a suitable meta-service description/modeling language for FIPA services (Margaret Lyell to action).
• To produce the outline/structure of a white paper on requirements for FIPA services (Jonathan Dale to action).
• Thanks to everyone who participated in the meeting.

Security WG resolutions

The FIPA Security WG proposes the following resolutions:

• It has completed its current 2nd work-plan and will add a descriptive output document to the repository. That work-plan had 3 objectives and each of these has been met:
• Objective 1: To examine security issues in the current (2002) FIPA specifications. It has recommended removing the encryption field in The Message Transport Specification (done by X2S) and no changes to the Agent Management Specification to add security – as a security model is needed first.
• Objective 2: To analyse and propose models to address issues raised by its white–paper on MAS security (f-out-000113) the deliverable of its first work-plan. The basis of a new security model has been proposed in an update to the white paper that is to be published in a Springer-Verlag LNAI volume. This new abstract security model is called the Asset Security Model. It is intended that a new work-plan for the security WG will develop a specification for security based on this model.
• Objective 3: To enhance the Policies and Domains Specification (FIPA00089) to support trust, security and privacy policies. The asset security model [POS02] defines the concept of a security profile. A security profile defines a relationship between one or more assets (items of value in the system) in one or more domains, one or more security threats and one more safeguards. This is a starting-point to discussing rules and constraints for the relationship between assets, threats, safeguards and domains. However, the security WG intends not to initially focus on the specification of security policies but rather to first focus on completing the abstract security model. In addition, the policy and domain work will be specialised for security. Although, this could form input into a generalised policies and domain model, the security group will not focus on this. Thus security group thus relinquishes ownership of the Policies and Domains.
• It is developing a new work-plan (to be submitted within one month of this meeting) and will produce specification(s) for MAS security so that it will form a new TC called TC “Security, Trust and Privacy”. The work plan will produce:
• A white paper to capture the motivation for MAS security and that analyses the different design choices for ACL security and makes recommendations for specifying ACL and MAS security.
• The specification of abstract security model (the asset model) that can be mapped to a FIPA MAS framework
• The reification of the model in one or more application domains.
• To continue to focus more of the work within the Security WG on activities such as interim meetings, joint-meetings with other organizations and projects outside of the main FIPA meetings;
• To encourage the PISA project members to join FIPA and to submit their privacy framework as input into FIPA and to subsequently develop specifications in this area.
• That the following be thanked for their active input at this meeting: Farooq Ahmad, Monique Calisti, Margaret Lyell, Ingo Timm, Tim Finin, Makoto Okada, and Stefan Poslad.  (Apologies are offered to anyone whose name was omitted).

FIPA for Business Applications SIG (F4BA) Resolutions

F4BA held a short meeting discussing briefly about future direction of the future of F4BA SIG.

The FIPA Security WG proposes the following resolutions:

• The initial focus of F4BA will be to survey publicly funded research projects to record experiences of using FIPA technology in different research projects, which implement FIPA technology on various application fields. The current F4B document will form the part of input for that.
• Heimo Laamanen resigned from the chairmanship.  The board of directors will nominate a new chairman. Stefan Poslad has agreed to temporarily act as chairman.

Image Committee Resolutions

• A more detailed summary (bunch of slides) of the Image Committee discussion has been sent by the Image chair (M. Calisti) to the image, to the board and to the FIPA secretariat.
• The Image Committee aims to improve the visibility of FIPA for enabling a better interaction with all the members and with the external community. Especially in this delicate and critical period the main concern is to ensure visibility and facilitate the contribution of the whole scientific community to FIPA by minimizing the costs.
• Cost reductions: by examining the budget estimate guess for 2002/2003 the Image (with the approval of the board) came to the following resolutions:
• FIPA meetings:
• Reduction of meetings days from 20 to 9 (11 for 2002-2003 year) per year
• Social event and lunches self-financed (unless offered)
• External supporters and sponsors is recommended
• FIPA Inform! Only electronic publication (from 5000 CHF planned to zero)
• For the publication of the FIPA specs in the form of books we should look for sponsors (maybe CD ROM would be cheaper?)
• Web maintenance: ask Jacquie to verify (with the help of Jonathan if possible) if there would be cheaper alternatives
• Sponsorships cuts:
• MAI’02 ~ 700 Euros, already agreed and to be paid
• Agentcities software competition 2003: no sponsorship, but full support
• Agentlink Industrial Event (5 Feb 2003): 500 Euros – we will ask for having a FIPA spot for presenting the standard
• Spring Agentlink School: no sponsorship, but full support
• AAMAS 2003: 1000 US dollars – we will ask for having a FIPA spot for presentation
• Total: 1760 CHF + 1493 CHF = 3253 CHF (instead of 10000 CHF planned)
• FIPA Inform! newsletter:

Collecting INPUT for the FIPA Inform! Newsletter Vol. 3, Issue 4 in coordination with the FIPA secretariat (Monique, Jacquie); due to image@fipa.org by 30 November 2002:

• Meeting Report (Menno Jonkers and Michael Kerstetter)
• News in brief (J. Kelly)
• Pensacola workshop report (Jeff Bradshaw)
• TC X2S: which specs go standard, how to vote, etc. (Fabio + Jonathan: to be asked)
• Technology overview: 3 options (we will ask and the first who’s submitting input will be selected ;-)):
• Context aware, Semantic Web (T. Finin)
• AUML and agent methodologies (J. Odell)
• Security (S. Poslad)
• Member profiles:
• Adetti (Luis Bothelo), Tryllian (Menno)
• Announcement corner (Jacquie/Monique)
• Thanks to the Japanese Society of Agents (JSA) for the translation of the FIPA Abstract Architecture in Japanese and for the future plan of translating the FIPA ACL standard related specs.
• Web Image:
• A link has been established with ObjectWeb: www.objectweb.org

§ A link is planned to be added with CEN/ISSS Survey of standards-related Fora and Consortia: http://www.cenorm.be/isss/consortia2/default.htm

• Future meetings:
• 10-11-12 Feb, Palermo, Italy (To be announced in the plenary and ask Jacquie to change the web site)
• 19-20-21 May 2003, Fukuoka, Japan (only when Makoto Okada will confirm the dates confirmation then announce it to the membership ASAP).
• Jacquie and Monique will verify a number of pending TODOs from the Image Resolution list of Helsinki.
• Thanks to: Makoto Okada, Fabio Bellifemine, Jonathan Dale, Stefan Poslad, Michael Berger, Menno Jonkers, Michael Kerstetter, Hiroki Suguri, Monique Calisti. Many thanks also to Jacquie Kelly for her remote and precious contribution.

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

Name	Affiliation
Niranjan Suri	IHMC
Jerry Pratt	IHMC
Andrzej Uszok	IHMC
Anil Raj	IHMC
Jeff Bradshaw	IHMC

10. FIPA thanks IHMC for offering FIPA excellent meeting facilities and friendly support in Pensacola, FL and for hosting its 27^th meeting, in particular: Jeff Bradshaw, Robin Risk, Jennifer O’Neill, Mike James, Alan Ordway, Roy Thomas, and also the FIPA Secretariat Jacquie Kelly.

11. FIPA invites its membership and contributors to the FIPA process to its 28^th meeting, February 10^th-12^th, 2002 in Palermo, Italy to be hosted by Engineering Ingegneria Informatica.