FIPA-OS now with added intelligence!

We are now pleased to announce the availability of FIPA-OS Version 1.2.0; this is the 7th public release since FIPA-OS was launched last October and the direct result of the contributions from the growing user base.

FIPA-OS is easy to install and now includes features to enable improved reasoning abilities within the agents. The following is a feature summary for the version 1.2.0 release:

• Additional Agent "Shell" that provides hooks to JESS (Java Expert System Shell http://herzberg.ca.sandia.gov/jess).
• Support for the FIPA-CCL content language (Choice Constraint Language http://liawww.epfl.ch/CCL/).
• 'Agent Loader' script utility to enable automatic instantiation of multiple agents in a single VM.
• Agent Management GUI to control agents executing on a FIPA-OS platform.
• Support for the Task Manager to simplify the construction of domain specific agents. See FIPA-OS_Agent_Tasks.pdf for more details.
• Two further example agents and tutorials
• Numerous bug fixes and feature enhancements

For more details on the new features included in FIPA-OS v1.2.0 and a detailed installation guide see FIPA_OSv1.2.0.pdf .

We are also pleased to announce that FIPA-OS has been made into an official SourceForge project (see http://sourceforge.net/projects/FIPA-OS for details). The main advantage of this change is that it provides developers with a set of tools to support their contribution to the Open Source initiative, such as direct access to the CVS tree, plus tools for tracking bugs. Further, a public FTP site is provided that will enable access to associated documents and code. Although SourceForge provides a email list facility, there are currently no plans to migrate from the list currently hosted at http://fipaos.Listbot.com.

FIPA-OS is being used in a growing list of projects, including SHUFFLE (http://www.ist-shuffle.org/) and FIPA-NET. These projects are already feeding back code changes that have been incorporated in this release of FIPA-OS. We would also like to encourage new developers to join us in this open source (royalty free) initiative, and help ensure that FIPA-OS supports the features required by all of the agent developers using the toolkit. If you have ideas for the future of FIPA-OS then please propose them on the list - take advantage of the FIPA-OS community.

The new download can be found on the DOWNLOADS page