Multi-perspectives on feature models

Domain feature models concisely express commonality and variability among variants of a software product line. For supporting separation of concerns, e.g., due to legal restrictions, technical considerations and business requirements, multi-view approaches restrict the configuration choices on feature models for different stakeholders. However, recent approaches lack a formalization for precise, yet flexible specifications of views that ensure every derivable configuration perspective to obey feature model semantics. Here, we introduce a novel approach for preconfiguring feature models to create multi-perspectives. Such customized perspectives result from composition of various concern-relevant views. A structured view model is used to organize features in view groups, wherein a feature may be contained in multiple views. We provide formalizations for view composition and guaranteed consistency of perspectives w.r.t. feature model semantics. Thereupon, an efficient algorithm to verify consistency for entire multi-perspectives is provided. We present an implementation and evaluate our concepts by means of various experiments.