Analysis of software similarity is a lively research topic, particularly in the context of software maintenance and software reuse. There exist several approaches to detecting similar code inside one software system and across many systems. While working on similarity analysis of software variants, we observed many analogies between the approaches for analyzing evolution of software and of biological organisms. Hence, we applied bioinformatics concepts used in genome similarity analysis, such as alignments and phylogenetic trees, to software variants. We present the usefulness of these concepts by applying them to a group of related systems from the BSD Unix family

Product line engineering is often conducted in an incremental way, in which the variability artifacts evolve in the space, the time, as well as the asset dimension. In order to cope with the evolution of the variability, the VITAL approach and tool have been developed and used in different industrial settings to analyze variability realizations relying on the C preprocessor. Over the last decade, further promising analysis approaches and tools have been developed. To understand, if and how they could enhance the VITAL approach, we have conducted an analysis of promising technologies. In this paper, we share some of our findings along our comparative study on variability code analysis technologies. As we have conducted the study in the light of the intended VITAL enhancement, the study does not claim completeness. Nevertheless, we believe that the findings can help researchers and industrial practitioners to gain an overview and find entry points for their own investigations.

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Product Line Engineering (PLE) enables strategic reuse within an organisation, thus reducing development costs, decreasing the time to market, and increasing product quality. As a core activity in PLE, variability management supports modelling of commonality and variability throughout the engineering life cycle. Given the increased complexity of modern software-intensive systems, variability management is becoming increasingly important. Transitioning to PLE approaches is a challenging task, as potential benefits must be carefully weighed against costs introduced by PLE approaches. This paper presents a collaborative approach for reverse-engineering variability and configuration knowledge with minimal domain expert involvement and provides insights into the experience we gained from our industrial collaboration. CCS CONCEPTS • Software and its engineering → Software product lines; Documentation.