Formal Specification of a Framework for Groupware Development

This paper describes the formal specification in Lotos of CoopScan, a framework for cooperative applications development. We first present the architectural choices and collaboration strategies for the integration of applications in such a collaboration aware framework. Then, we show how we derive a Lotos specification from the CoopScan description. We define some generic properties to be verified in this kind of framework. The verification of some of these properties is presented, using the Caesar-Ald' ebaran toolbox. Keywords: formal specification, verification, Lotos, CSCW, groupware, software components 1 INTRODUCTION As local networks and teamwork develop, the concept of Computer Supported Cooperative Works (CSCW) becomes increasingly important. Cooperative applications have been classified following several criteria. One deals with the nature of interactions between participants, either asynchronous or synchronous (every action on the shared space is simultaneously visible by a..