Preserving contexts for soft conformance relation

Abstract

This paper addresses the study of bisimulation based conformance relations in which input and output actions not presented in the specification are added to the implementation. A new definition, that we called soft conformance, is given. Then, we concentrate on the study of the conditions under which a context preserves the soft conformance relation of two agents. These conditions depend both on the specification and the implementation in the conformance relation and also on the context. Since the addition of extraneous actions to the implementation allows to define malicious contexts that would not preserve the conformance relation, such a characterisation of the family of contexts preserving each individual pair (implementation and specification) in the conformance relation is the best result that can be expected in this direction.