Towards the formal description of operating systems

Abstract

For a number of widely used programming languages formal descriptions of their semantic have been presented /1,2/. In addition, formal description techniques have been applied to investigate programming languages and to achieve completeness and correctness proofs for algorithms and language implementations /3,4,5/. The formal description of operating systems did not achieve the same kind of success. This is partially due to the large size of currently used operating systems, but also to the difficulties encountered in understanding operating systems to a depth comparable to our understanding of programming languages. To provide a formal description of the mechanisms investigated so far /6,7,8/ and to allow a study of their interactions in a formally defined environment, it is our feeling that a concentrated effort to formally describe the semantic of a complete existing or planned operating systems should be undertaken.