Abstract
The goal of this position paper is to reflect about the concept of service in Informatics. In particular, we present in this paper the concept of dynamic service generation as a different way to provide services in computermediated contexts: services are dynamically constructed and provided (generated) by agents (human or artificial) within a community, by means of a conversation. This process allows services to be more accurate, precise, customized and personalized to satisfy a non predetermined need or wish. The paper presents an overview of the concept of service from philosophy to computer science (service oriented computing). A strict comparison with the current popular approach, called product delivery, is done. The main result emerging by these reflections is a list of "characteristics" of dynamic service generation, in order to promote a progressive transition from product delivery to dynamic service generation systems by transforming one-by-one the outlined characteristics into requirements and specifications. More specifically, two major characteristics are precisely described in the paper as they imply 80% of the other ones. They promote a substitution of an agent oriented kernel to the current object oriented kernel of services as well as the Grid as the service oriented architecture and infrastructure for service exchanges between agents.