David Karlsson:
Variability Management with a Feature Perspective,
summary, report, March 2004.

Abstract:
Ericsson Mobile Platforms AB is a company that develops platforms for mobile communication. The customers of these platforms are mobile phone manufacturers, which use them to create saleable consumer products.

To be able to compete on today's market for mobile platforms it is essential to be able to create a large variety of products. This has lead to the adoption of the software product-line approach since it enables developers to maximize reuse by creating (or instantiating) products from a common code base by means of configuration.

The configuration process is of great significance since it is one f the last steps before a product is delivered and it influences many areas of the development process such as build time and software testing.

Creating a multitude of products from a common code base creates difficulties of its own. There is no standardized way of modelling that captures the software variabilities and commonalities in a clear, structured fashion. Furthermore, creating a multitude of product from the same assets usually has effects on the architecture of the system, which has to be recognized and handled in a satisfactory manor.

The amount of variability in embedded systems has increased dramatically over the last years, making it a necessity to fully understand and to have a complete process for managing variabilities.

This thesis addresses both the design and implementation aspects of software variabilities in the context of the configuration process.