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Coevolution of variability models and related software artifacts

A fresh look at evolution patterns in the Linux kernel

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Abstract

Variant-rich software systems offer a large degree of customization, allowing users to configure the target system according to their preferences and needs. Facing high degrees of variability, these systems often employ variability models to explicitly capture user-configurable features (e.g., systems options) and the constraints they impose. The explicit representation of features allows them to be referenced in different variation points across different artifacts, enabling the latter to vary according to specific feature selections. In such settings, the evolution of variability models interplays with the evolution of related artifacts, requiring the two to evolve together, or coevolve. Interestingly, little is known about how such coevolution occurs in real-world systems, as existing research has focused mostly on variability evolution as it happens in variability models only. Furthermore, existing techniques supporting variability evolution are usually validated with randomly-generated variability models or evolution scenarios that do not stem from practice. As the community lacks a deep understanding of how variability evolution occurs in real-world systems and how it relates to the evolution of different kinds of software artifacts, it is not surprising that industry reports existing tools and solutions ineffective, as they do not handle the complexity found in practice. Attempting to mitigate this overall lack of knowledge and to support tool builders with insights on how variability models coevolve with other artifact types, we study a large and complex real-world variant-rich software system: the Linux kernel. Specifically, we extract variability-coevolution patterns capturing changes in the variability model of the Linux kernel with subsequent changes in Makefiles and C source code. From the analysis of the patterns, we report on findings concerning evolution principles found in the kernel, and we reveal deficiencies in existing tools and theory when handling changes captured by our patterns.

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Notes

  1. See http://splc.net/fame.html

  2. See also: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?RuleOfThree

  3. See https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/kbuild/kconfig-language.txt

  4. See https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/fb/framebuffer.txt

  5. See https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/kbuild/

  6. See http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=7c08c9ae

  7. See http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/coevolution-patterns

  8. See git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git

  9. The numbers in the table do not account for commits that merge branches.

  10. See http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=89803d83

  11. V4L/DVB: Video for Linux/Digital Video Broadcasting

  12. See http://sethrobertson.github.io/GitBestPractices/

  13. These values are calculated as follows: for the additions sample, we sum the size of all its commit windows (502), and divide the result by the number of added primary features (268). Likewise, in the removals case, we sum the total number of commits in the commit windows in the corresponding sample (155), and divide it by the number of removed primary features (132).

  14. See http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=bbddff05

  15. When reviewing the original and extended samples, A 3 indicated five possible inconsistencies: three were minor comments, whereas for the remaining two, A 3 did not agree that they were instances of a particular pattern. Upon further clarification, A 3 agreed that the two instances were indeed related to the pattern in question. A 4, in turn, pointed out 7 % and 14 % inconsistencies in the classification of the primary features in the additions and removals samples, respectively. Almost all inconsistencies were confirmed, and the patterns’ frequencies were changed accordingly.

  16. Basically, a rename just updates all references to a given feature name f to a new name f N in all spaces where f appears. Note that renaming does not cause any behavioural change, nor does it change the set of cross-tree constraints.

  17. See https://raw.github.com/gregkh/kernel-history/master/scripts/genstat.pl

  18. See http://squashfs.sourceforge.net/

  19. See http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=85e09b40

  20. See http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=7657cacf

  21. See http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=72246da4

  22. See http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=24278d14

  23. In our previous catalog (Passos et al. 2013), we named the pattern as Featurize code (FTC).

  24. See http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=f1d7dbbe

  25. See http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=ff850c33

  26. See http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=3ebe1243

  27. See http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=2e9f3bdd

  28. See http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4e9687d9

  29. See https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/SubmittingPatches

  30. See https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/development-process/4.Coding

  31. See http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/ifdefs.html

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    Leonardo Passos, Krzysztof Czarnecki & Jianmei Guo

  2. Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil

    Leopoldo Teixeira & Paulo Borba

  3. Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Nicolas Dintzner

  4. University of Passau, Passau, Germany

    Sven Apel

  5. IT University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Andrzej Wąsowski

Authors
  1. Leonardo Passos
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  2. Leopoldo Teixeira
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  3. Nicolas Dintzner
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  4. Sven Apel
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  5. Andrzej Wąsowski
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  6. Krzysztof Czarnecki
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  7. Paulo Borba
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  8. Jianmei Guo
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Correspondence to Leonardo Passos.

Additional information

Communicated by: Ebrahim Bagheri, David Benavides, Per Runeson and Klaus Schmid

This work was partially funded by CAPES (BEX 0459-10-0), NECSIS, CNPq (141909/2010-2 and 245311/2012-2), FACEPE (APQ-0570-1.03/14), the German Research Foundation (AP 206/4, AP 206/5, and AP 206/6), ARTEMIS JU (295397 VARIES), and the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation.

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Passos, L., Teixeira, L., Dintzner, N. et al. Coevolution of variability models and related software artifacts. Empir Software Eng 21, 1744–1793 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-015-9364-x

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