Obstruction-Free Algorithms Can Be Practically Wait-Free

Faith Ellen Fich, Victor Luchangco, Mark Moir, Nir Shavit

Abstract: The obstruction-free progress condition is weaker than previous nonblocking progress conditions such as lock-freedom and wait-freedom, and admits simpler implementations that are faster in the uncontended case. Pragmatic contention management techniques appear to be effective at facilitating progress in practice, but, as far as we know, none guarantees progress.