Inferring information from feature diagrams to product line economic models

Existing economic models support the estimation of the costs and benefits of developing and evolving a Software Product Line (SPL) as compared to undertaking traditional software development approaches. In addition, Feature Diagrams (FDs) are a valuable tool to scope the domain of a SPL. This paper proposes an algorithm to calculate, from a FD, the following information for economic models: the total number of products of a SPL, the SPL homogeneity and the commonality of the SPL requirements. The algorithm running time belongs to the complexity class O(f2). In contrast to related work, the algorithm is free of dependencies on off-the-self tools and is generally specified for an abstract FD notation, that works as a pivot language for most of the available notations for feature modeling.