Consolidated product line variability modeling

In this chapter we present an improved and simplified metamodel for product line variability. This model has been consolidated from diverse approaches in the earlier research projects ESAPS, CAFÉ and other existing work, supplied with recent research in FAMILIES. The consolidated metamodel aims to be the starting point for standardization. A standard will lay the grounds for commercial and open-source tool support. We present here a prototype tool based on the metamodel. To put the work in context, we present three different approaches for capturing variability: using standard languages (exemplified by UML 2.0), using annotations to standard languages, and using domain-specific languages. We use the same Watch example to present how varibaility in all three approaches.