Software agents are an interesting concept. I like to think of agent systems as a colony of ants or termites, and I try and stay away from the temptation to associate grid computing with agents (different technology goals, similar solutions, "grid nodes don't have instincts"). To exist and function agents need a compatible environment, I think of this environment as being that of businessman's hotel (bed, bar, telephone, taxi rank).
It is this environment that I expect JSR87 to provide, so what has happened to it? [the links don't work for a start]
There are around a dozen open source Java projects that have some agent style environment built into them, e.g. JADE, ZEUS & DIET Agents to name but a few. The FIPA Standard has been around for a couple of years now and lays out clearly agent platforms and agent services. So what is the hold up? The standards are there, the projects have blazed the trail and solved most of the practical issues concerning security and resource management.
Or is it another case of: wait until everyone is using agent4j and then make a very similar but slightly off target version called java.agenting.
For anyone interested there was this interesting presentation from BT at a conference last month.
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