kconfig-webconf: retrofitting performance models onto kconfig-based software product lines

Abstract

Despite decades of research and clear advantages, performance-aware configuration of real-world software product lines is still an exception rather than the norm. One reason for this may be tooling: configuration software with support for non-functional property models is generally not compatible with the configuration and build process of existing product lines. Specifically, the Kconfig language is popular in open source software projects, but neither language nor configuration frontends support performance models. To address this, we present kconfig-webconf: a performance-aware, Kconfig-compatible software product line configuration frontend. It is part of a toolchain that can automatically generate performance models with a minimal amount of changes to a software product line's build process. With such a performance model, kconfig-webconf can serve as a performance-aware drop-in replacement for existing Kconfig frontends. We evaluate its usage in five examples, including the busybox multi-call binary and the resKIL agricultural AI product line.