Conclusion - Model-Driven and Software Product Line Engineering - page 245

As we demonstrated in Chapter 6 and in [ARB 09], our
mechanism for expressing fine-grained variations between
products of an MD-SPL by using constraint models extends the
expressive power of variability in MD-SPL, and consequently,
extends the scope of products that can be fine-grained
configured.

9.2.2. Multi-staged configuration of products

Ourapproachsupportsthemodelingofvariabilityinseveral
stages. We allow product line architects, at different (staged)
times, to express and capture coarse and fine-grained
variations between members of product lines. This helps
product line architects with different skills to focus on
particular concerns at different times.

At configuration time, we allow product designers
configuring products at different binding times to choose
at each stage specific variants to create domain models and
binding models. Thus, we postponed the binding time of
variations facilitating the intervention of stakeholders with
different profiles in the configuration process. For instance,
facilities designers and software architects can provide
their choices for the facilities and software architecture of
Smart-Homes, at different times.

9.2.3. Coarse and fine-grained variations and

configurations

As far as we know, our approach is the only MD-SPL
approach allowing the creation of fine-grained configurations
and derivation of products based on such configurations. This
adds expressive power to variability modeling, which usually
only captures coarse-grained variability. We have presented
the way to model fine-grained configurations between product
line members by means of binding models. A binding model
allows us to configure model elements individually based on
features. For example, we have created a binding to indicate