Requirements-Driven Configuration of Software Systems

Overview

Configuring large-scale software to meet different user requirements is a challenging process, since end-users do not know the technical details of the system in the first place. The authors presents an automatic process to connect high-level user requirements with low-level system's configurations. The process takes into account different user preferences and expectations, making configuration easier and more user-centered. Since it reuses a software system's configuration mechanisms, the configuration process is transparent to the system development. Moreover, it is very easy to plug different reasoning frameworks into the configuration process. As a case study, the authors have reengineered the Mozilla Firefox web browser into a requirements-driven software system, without changing its source code.