[pept:134] Software Variability Management workshop: Call For Participation

["Jilles van Gurp" <jilles@xxxxxxxxx> (by way of Robert Glueck)]

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

Workshop on SOFTWARE VARIABILITY MANAGEMENT
Where: Academy building, Groningen, The Netherlands
When: 13 & 14 February 2003

website: http://segroup.cs.rug.nl/svm

This event is sponsored by:
- The European Science Foundation
- The ESF RELEASE Science Network
- Philips Medical Systems
- CONIPH  (Configuration in Industrial Product Families)
- The Research institute of the department of Mathematics & Computing
Science, University of Groningen

Introduction

Most modern software needs to support increasing amounts of variability,
i.e. locations in the software where behaviour can be configured. This
trend leads to a situation where the complexity of managing the amount
of variability becomes a primary concern that needs to be addressed. Two
causes for the increasing amount of variability are the delaying of
design decisions to the latest point that is economically feasible and
the transfer of variability from mechanics and hardware to the software
in embedded systems. Examples of the first category include software
product families, the configuration wizards and tools in most commercial
software, the configuration interface of software components in
component-based software engineering and even the dynamic, run-time
composition of web-services. Examples of the second category can be
found in many embedded systems, including car electronics,
telecommunications and consumer electronics.

Software variability is the ability of a software system or artefact to
be changed, customized or configured for use in a particular context. A
high degree of variability allows the use of software in a broader range
of contexts, i.e. the software is more reusable. Variability can be
viewed as consisting of two dimensions, i.e. space and time. The space
dimension is concerned with the use of software in multiple contexts,
e.g. multiple products in a software product family. The time dimension
is concerned with the ability of software to support evolution and
changing requirements in its various contexts.

The reason for identifying software variability management as a core
topic is twofold. First, within the software engineering research
community, we have come to realize that the fundamental issue in a range
of reuse approaches, including object-oriented frameworks,
component-based software engineering and software product families, is
the management of the provided variability. Basically, the reusability
of any software artefact is determined by its ability to support the
variability required from it. Second, in several industrial
organizations, the complexity of variability management is becoming such
that more systematic approaches are required as the limitations of
ad-hoc approaches experienced daily. For instance, the number of
variation points for industrial software product families may range in
the thousands.

Workshop

Based on the response on our earlier call for papers, we have put
together a paper track consisting of 11 papers (for program see
http://segroup.cs.rug.nl/svm/Workshopprogram.html). During the workshop,
authors of the papers will present their papers. In addition to the
paper sessions, there will be sessions with working groups  working on
and lots of opportunity for discussion.

Participation

It is still possible to participate in our workshop. If you would like
to participate, please send an email to ms Esmee Elshof before February
1st 2003.

We hope to welcome you soon in Groningen,

Jan Bosch & Jilles van Gurp



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