OSAmI-Commons - New Rules

"The concept of an 'open' Internet, managed properly, needs to be built among citizens and governments for a common understanding of the new rules powering the 'web of objects'. This is why organisations such as Cenatic – a government foundation for open technologies – is part of the consortium," says Bermejo. "In the technical domain, we need a common technical abstraction for the mapping of the physical objects in the 'web of objects'."

OSAmI is developing open technologies for all types of device – allowing even very small devices to be perceived as services. It will enable sensor networks to be mapped to aggregated services and dynamic containers to be linked with open repositories of service implementations. Profiling of computing nodes and systems will allow reuse of aggregated service implementations. Finally, digital identity federations and security issues are being addressed for building service systems within the 'web of objects'.

A recent OECD study on software innovation recognises the increasing importance of software for all markets. Major technical trends towards cloud infrastructures and software as a service (SaaS) are identified both in the OECD report and ITEA Roadmap 3. Open source is one of the most relevant innovations from a software-developer perspective. It has allowed the fast emergence of cloud-computing-related technologies. The benefits from an SaaS approach are probably more for the user. Most probably both will converge.

OSAmI proposes a cross-domain approach for building its ambient intelligence commons – it defines ambient intelligence as 'the system of service systems'. The objective is to increase the level of reuse through open-source service implementations, and extending product line concepts through nodes and system profiles. "Our approach will allow for the same platform to be used in very different domains," explains Bermejo.