For the sake of argument, let's say I'm implementing Future for a task which is not cancelable. The Java 6 API doc says: After [cancel()] returns, subsequent calls to isDone() will always return true. [cancel()] returns false if the task could not be cancelled, typically because it has already completed normally It also says: [isDone()] returns true if this task completed. But what if my cancellation fails not because the task is already completed, but because it simply cannot be cancelled? Is there a way out of this contradiction (other than making my uncancelable task cancelable and sidestepping it altogether)?