Configuring Product Families Using Design Spaces

In the product family based application engineering process configuration of the reusable assets is an important issue. Variability introduced during domain engineering has to be resolved to the concrete requirements of the specific application. On the requirements level variability is typically described in feature models as introduced in the FODA approach. On lower levels variability is integrated in a code framework, which is generic enough in order to be instantiated to the different requirements covered by the product family. The gap between these levels has to be bridged by a configuration technique which allows the selection of features on the requirements level resulting in a ready configured code framework which acts as a starting point for the implementation of application specific enhancements which are not part of the product family. In this paper we present our revised notion of Design Spaces, a configuration technique specialized for software product families. The new developments were influenced by the results of an analysis of existing configuration techniques, as well as experiences in the use of the technique in product families. Design Spaces are specialized for the description of classic feature models and their usage during the configuration of generic components.