We are currently in Phase 2 of the challenge track, and the Call for Solutions is open. The following cases have been selected as representative and timely research challenges in the area of software and system product line engineering. Check the complete information of the challenges at: https://variability-challenges.github.io
Newly accepted challenges
TBA
Challenges accepted in previous years
- A Benchmark for Active Learning of Variability-Intensive Systems
Shaghayegh Tavassoli, Carlos Diego Nascimento Damasceno, Mohammad Reza Mousavi and Ramtin Khosravi - Variability Fault Localization: A Benchmark
Kien-Tuan Ngo, Thu-Trang Nguyen, Son Nguyen and Hieu Vo Dinh - Managing Systems Evolving in Space and Time: Four Challenges for Maintenance, Evolution and Composition of Variants
Gabriela Karoline Michelon, David Obermann, Wesley K. G. Assunção, Lukas Linsbauer, Paul Grünbacher and Alexander Egyed - Testing Configurable Software Systems: The Failure Observation Challenge
Fischer Ferreira, Markos Viggiato, MaurÍcio Souza and Eduardo Figueiredo - Variability Management meets Microservices: Six Challenges of Re-Engineering Microservice-Based Webshops
Wesley K. G. Assunção, Jacob Krüger and Willian D. F. Mendonça - A BDD for Linux? The Knowledge Compilation Challenge for Variability
Thomas Thüm - Applying Product Line Engineering Concepts to Deep Neural Networks
Javad Ghofrani, Ehsan Kozegar, Anna Lena Fehlhaber, and Mohammad Divband Soorati - Product Sampling for Product Lines: The Scalability Challenge
Tobias Pett, Thomas Thüm, Tobias Runge, Sebastian Krieter, Malte Lochau, and Ina Schaefer - Apo-Games – A Case Study for Reverse Engineering Variability from Cloned Java Variants
Jacob Krüger, Wolfram Fenske, Thomas Thüm, Dirk Aporius, Gunter Saake, and Thomas Leich - Feature Location Benchmark with ArgoUML SPL
Jabier Martinez, Nicolas Ordoñez, Xhevahire Tërnava, Tewfik Ziadi, Jairo Aponte, Eduardo Figueiredo, and Marco Tulio Valente - Interoperability of Software Product Line Variants
Ferruccio Damiani, Reiner Hähnle, Eduard Kamburjan, and Michael Lienhardt - Localizing Configurations in Highly-Configurable Systems
Paul Gazzillo, Ugur Koc, Thanhvu Nguyen, and Shiyi Wei
Each of these cases presents a set of concrete tasks (some of which may be optional) which are to be solved by the participants. The case descriptions, which typically include pointers to additional resources, are available through the respective links above.
The SPLC Challenge Track now seeks your solutions to all of these interesting problems of various natures. To participate, select a case you are interested in and submit a paper that tackles the tasks and challenges described in that challenge case. You are welcome to submit multiple papers, where each paper is related to one case. Papers should be accompanied by solution artefacts as necessary, depending on the case study and the concrete tasks which are to be solved. Thus, solution artefacts may range from hand-crafted sketches or models to fully automatically generated development artefacts or analysis results. Wherever possible, solution artefacts should be made available in a public repository or be hosted on a publicly available website to ensure the reproducibility of the results. The paper should include a description of your solution and include an evaluation according to the evaluation criteria stated by the respective case description. Note that early ideas, early results, and partial solutions are welcome. Also, note that submissions that apply existing tools and techniques to address a given challenge are also welcome.
Solutions will be evaluated by program committees, one separate committee per case, which are comprised of reviewers who have the expertise required to evaluate submitted solutions. Typically, one or two case authors are part of a case’s PC. Accepted solutions will be presented and discussed at the conference and their corresponding papers will be published in the official conference proceedings. Please note that case authors cannot submit a solution to their own challenge.
Submission Information
Solutions have a maximum of 6 pages including all text, figures, etc, plus 1 additional page containing only references may be included.
Submissions must adhere to the latest ACM Master Article Template: https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template.
Latex users should use the “sigconf” option, so they are recommended to use the template that can be found in “sample-sigconf.tex”. In this way, the following latex code can be placed at the start of the latex document to create a double column layout:
\documentclass[sigconf,review]{acmart}
\acmConference[SPLC'23]{27th International Systems and Software Product Line Conference}{August 28--September 1, 2023}{Tokyo, Japan}The SPLC proceedings will be published in the ACM Digital Library.
By submitting your article to an ACM Publication, you are hereby acknowledging that you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies, including ACM’s new Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects. Alleged violations of this policy or any ACM Publications Policy will be investigated by ACM and may result in a full retraction of your paper, in addition to other potential penalties, as per ACM Publications Policy.
Please ensure that you and your co-authors obtain an ORCID ID, so you can complete the publishing process for your accepted paper. ACM has been involved in ORCID from the start and we have recently made a commitment to collect ORCID IDs from all of our published authors. The collection process has started and will roll out as a requirement throughout 2022. We are committed to improve author discoverability, ensure proper attribution and contribute to ongoing community efforts around name normalization; your ORCID ID will help in these efforts.
The author of the accepted submission must pay a full registration fee for the submission to be published. SPLC 2023 is primarily a physical event and papers are expected to be presented on site, except where no co-author is able to attend SPLC 2023 in Tokyo. If any co-author of a paper is attending physically, they will need to present the paper. If no co-author is able to come to Tokyo to present an accepted paper, we ask that you let us know for which paper no co-author is able to present in-person. Such remote presenters will be accommodated for presenting online, live where feasible or else via a recording in exceptional circumstances.
Submission link
Submissions should be sent using EasyChair:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=splc23 (Challenge Solutions Track)
Important Dates (AoE time)
The following describes the important dates for solution submissions.
- Challenge solution submission: June 12, 2023
- Challenge solution notification: July 2, 2023
- Camera-ready of challenge solution: July 9, 2023
- Conference: August 28 – September 1, 2023
Chairs
Program Committee
- Paul Temple, Université de Rennes 1, FR
- Wesley K. G. Assunção, Johannes Kepler University Linz, AT
- Lea Gerling, University of Hildesheim, DE
- Carlos Diego Nascimento Damasceno, Radboud University, NL
- Ferruccio Damiani, Dipartimento di Informatica, Università di Torino, IT
- Tewfik Ziadi, Sorbonne Université-CNRS 7606, LIP6, FR
- Xavier Devroey, University of Namur, BE
- Laura Semini, University of Pisa, IT