No abstract

Software Product Lines (SPL) enable efficient derivation of products. SPL concepts have been applied successfully in many domains including interactive applications. However, the user interface (UI) part of applications has barely been addressed yet. While standard SPL concepts allow derivation of functionally correct UIs, there are additional nonfunctional requirements, like usability, which have to be considered. This paper presents a case study investigating UI variability found in variants of the commercial web-based information system HIS-GX/QIS. We analyze which aspects of a UI vary and to which degree. The results show that just tweaking the final UI (e.g., using stylesheets) is not sufficient but there is a need for more customization which must be supported by, e.g., UI-specific models.

The open variability of software product line ecosystems allows customers and third party organizations to create extensions to a system which may refine the variability model. In this paper we will describe an approach to evolution support, which was developed in the context of one specific company, HIS GmbH. However, the approach is much more generic than this. In particular, it is based on the formalization of modifications to configuration values and constraints on both the model and the data in the context of the evolution of multi-level configurations. Our approach supports the identification of inconsistencies in evolution.

We present an approach that supports the customization and evolution of a database schema in a software ecosystem context. The approach allows for the creation of customized database schemas according to selected, supported feature packs and can be used in an ecosystem context, where thirdparty providers and customers augment the system with their own capabilities.The creation of the final database schema is automatic and also the relevant updates of individual feature packs can be automatically handled by the system.

In an information system ecosystem customers integrate features, which are independently developed and evolved by multiple organizations. These features need to work together although there is little to no coordination among developer organizations.The handling of such ecosystems becomes the more challenging, the more the solutions provided by the different parties are intertwined. In this paper, we propose to handle implementations on a per-feature basis, and introduce an approach towards this goal, which we call feature packs. We discuss the requirements on such an approach and emphasize in particular the kind of analysis relevant to ensure that the system resulting from a corresponding aggregation of feature packs works reliably. We also illustrate a realization of the approach using a real-world ecosystem case study.