Ensuring fairness in a multiprocessor environment using historical abuse recognition in spinlock acquisition

A method and system for ordering equitable access to a limited resource (such as a spinlock) by a plurality of contenders (such as processors) where each of the contenders contends for access more than one time. The method classifies one or more contenders that have failed to gain access to the limited resource after at least a predetermined number of attempts as abused contenders. The abused contenders attempt among themselves to gain access to the limited resource. The method repeats the above until all of the abused contenders have gained access to the limited resource.