Investigation of feature run-time conflicts on goal model-based reuse

A fundamental task when reusing software artifacts is to determine the most appropriate artifact for the current reuse context. Goal modeling allows modelers to capture the advantages and disadvantages of reusable candidate artifacts, which in turn helps reason about the most appropriate candidate artifact. However, goal models are rarely used in isolation for the description of an artifact, but are combined with other models that impose additional constraints on the most appropriate candidate. Furthermore, reusable artifacts are assembled into reuse hierarchies to realize an application. This paper presents a novel goal model evaluation mechanism for the selection of the most appropriate candidate, which (i) takes into account additional configuration constraints expressed with feature models and run-time constraints expressed with workflow models that may affect the selection of reusable software artifacts, (ii) considers reuse hierarchies, and (iii) establishes a history of design decisions. Furthermore, a proof-of-concept implementation of the novel evaluation mechanism is discussed.