Change control for product line software engineering

Abstract

Product line software engineering (PLSE) has proved to be an effective way to benefit from code reuse, leading to improved development efficiency, time-to-market, and product quality. In PLSE, a set of related products is developed by combining reused core assets with product-specific custom assets. Core assets implement most product functionality, and support variable functionality. Custom assets integrate a product's core assets, instantiate variation points, and implement functionality unique to the product. PLSE poses challenges for change control. Software engineering change control is related to configuration management (CM), and is concerned with planning, coordinating, tracking, and managing the impact of change to software artifacts (e.g. source code). The root cause of change control problems for PLSE is that core assets are shared between products that have different stakeholders. Core assets must satisfy the sometimes conflicting needs of these stakeholders. This position paper lists some specific change control problems characteristic of, or exacerbated by, PLSE and some of their solutions. These were observed during the author's prior experience working in a company that adopted PLSE and maintained product lines.