An approach for semantic enrichment of software product lines
João Bosco Ferreira Filho, Olivier Barais, Benoît Baudry, Windson Viana, Rossana M. C. Andrade · 2012
Software Product Lines (SPLs) have evolved and gained attention as one of the most promising approaches for software reuse. Feature models are the main technique to represent domain variability in SPLs. However, there are other domain aspects, besides variability, which cannot be expressed in a feature model. Also, these diagrams were not designed to facilitate information retrieval, interoperability and inference. In contrast, ontologies seem to be the best solution to meet these requirements. Therefore, this work presents an approach for semantic enrichment of SPLs using ontologies. Our proposal provides methods to add domain information besides variability description, and a top-ontology that specifies generic concepts and relations in an SPL, working as a guide model for information addition. The proposed approach reuses the existing SPL feature model, adding semantic descriptions in a less intrusive way than modifying the feature model notation.