Variability-intensive Software Systems: Product Lines and Beyond

Product line engineering emerged from the software reuse and generative programming movements of the 70s. However, in today's competitive and fast-paced markets where users expect software to adapt to their specific needs, most modern software-intensive products and services are variability-intensive, regardless of whether they are part of a product line or not. In this talk, we explore how building variability-intensive software systems influences the various software product lifecycle stages. Furthermore, we look beyond variability in functional features: We explore the role of quality attributes in the design of variability-intensive software systems and discuss how to address the challenge of identifying and managing variability in quality attributes. Finally, based on the example of software product line research, we explore how research on variability has been changing over time and if research trends in industry and academia have diverged.