Software Product Line Engineering Basics - Model-Driven and Software Product Line Engineering - page 31

The adoption of SPLE by a company is an important
problem, for which, not much research has been undertaken.
However, [CLE 02b, CLE 06] present some results on this
subject. Adoption requires an initial investment and the
coordination of several business and technical activities.
In [CLE 06] the authors argue the need for re-using
an “Adoption Factory” to coordinate these practices for
successfully initiating a product line. As explained by Krueger
in [KRU 06] the first generation of SPL methods rely on
manual techniques to build products. The next generation
of methods offers another step forward with bounded
variability combinations and software mass customization.
This new generation will minimize the adoption barrier by
automating application engineering and reducing the number
of product configurations. In this topic, we will focus on
the process and technical aspects related to MDE. The
techniques presented here, like the automated application
engineering with configurators and the creation of feature
model configurations, are completely aligned with this new
generation.
To run an SPLE process, three main ways have been
identified in the literature: proactive, reactive, or extractive
(see [FRA 05, CLE 02b]). In the proactive process, the
engineering starts from scratch, analyzes the domain, builds
the reference architecture, the core assets, and then generates
the products. There is an important investment at the
beginning to start the line and precise management must
be done to evaluate the benefits. It will be successful in a
mature and stable domain where it is possible to know in
advance the features and the product characteristics. The
reactive process is a way to dynamically develop and extend
the product line. It starts with an existing product line or
a product and then builds the variability models with new
products and new features.This is suitable for a domain where
products are not stable or not known when the product line
begins. It does not need a significant initial investment but