This paper describes recent developments with the licas (lightweight Internet-based communication for autonomic services) software package. In particular, it describes how the architecture and functionality have changed from the first version release. The autonomous nature of the system is focused on, which requires independent behaviour and metadata descriptions of each service. The system has now also been ported to the Java mobile environment. Then some open questions or problems will be discussed in the areas of metadata consistency, security and trust. Finally, some solutions to these problems will also be suggested.