Specifying Open Agent Systems: A Survey

Electronic markets, dispute resolution and negotiation protocols are three types of application domain that can be viewed as open agent systems. Members of such systems are developed by different parties and have conflicting goals. Consequently, they may choose not to, or simply fail to, conform to the norms governing their interactions. It has been argued that many practical applications in the future will be realised in terms of open agent systems of this sort. Not surprisingly, recently there is a growing interest in open systems. In this paper we review and compare four approaches for the specification of open systems, pointing out the extent to which they satisfy a set of requirements identified in the literature.