PROV-ISSUE-4: Coming to consensus on agent

Hi All,

I believe that we were closer to reaching some consensus on agents. It 
would be good if we could get there by this weeks telecon as this would 
help in the process of consolidating concepts for the F2F meeting.

So far I believe the following are attributes that are agreed upon:

- An agent is active.

- Examples of agent are: people, organizations or computer agents (i.e. 
operating systems)

- There can be a relationship between agents and process executions

Discussion points:

- There was a debate around whether to make a human agent / computer 
agent distinction. Do we need to make this distinction?

- There was a debate about whether an agent should just be a status of a 
thing.

I think these should be able to be resolved quickly. I encourage people 
to look at the discussion on http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/wiki/ConceptAgent

I have added the following attempt at a summary definition.

PROPOSED: An agent is an active thing. It may be linked to a process 
execution, for example, by controlling it. Examples of agent include 
person, organization, and software agent.

Can you express your support for this definition or come up with an 
alternative by Thursday's telecon.

Thanks,
Paul

Received on Tuesday, 28 June 2011 09:02:22 UTC