WHO DO YOU SUE? - THE ORIGINS AND IMPACTS OF FEATURE INTERACTIONS
Professor Bernard Cohen, Dept of Computer Science, City University:

Abstract: The evolution of the telecommunication system, and of the services it offers, necessitates the introduction of new semantic concepts and the revision of old ones. When these concepts conflict with each other, the system exhibits the undesirable properties known collectively as 'feature interactions'. Enterprises purchase those services that they believe will (collectively) help them to achieve their purposes. Destructive interactions among such services may inhibit their clients' ability to achieve their purposes. The suppliers of such services should be liable for their clients' contingent damages, but such a suit is possible only if the party, or parties, at fault can be clearly identified and shown to have been negligent. In our present open service marketplace, this is exceptionally difficult because the services themselves, and the platforms on which they are implemented, are described in such a way that their interactions are not analytically predictable, either by their clients or by their providers. There is a real and present need for a formal framework in which services, platforms, and their interactions may be described and analysed. Such a framework would have to support the articulation of the ontology and semantics of each service, and of each platform on which it had been implemented, so that violations of these assumptions could be identified before the service was deployed.

This seminar was held at the Department of Computer Science, Royal Holloway, University of London on 6 March 1997.

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