Failures without chaos: a new process semantics for fair abstraction

Abstract

We propose a new process semantics that combines the advantages of fair abstraction from internal process activity with the simplicity of failure semantics.The new semantics is obtained by changing the way the original failure semantics of Brookes, Hoare and Roscoe or the equivalent acceptance semantics of de Nicola and Hennessy deal with infinite internal process activity, known as divergence.We work in an algebraic setting and develop the new semantics stepwise, thereby systematically comparing previous proposals.