Software product lines

Software product lines are emerging as an important new paradigm for so- ware development. Product lines are enabling organizations to achieve impressive time-to-market gains and cost reductions. In 1997, we at the Software Engine- ing Institute (SEI) launched a Product Line Practice Initiative. Our vision was that product line development would be a low-risk, high-return proposition for the entire software engineering community. It was our hope from the beginning that there would eventually be su? cient interest to hold a conference. The First Software Product Line Conference (SPLC1) was the realization of that hope. Since SPLC1, we have seen a growing interest in software product lines. Companies are launching their own software product line initiatives, product line technical and business practices are maturing, product line tool vendors are emerging, and books on product lines are being published. Motivated by the enthusiastic response to SPLC1 and the increasing number of software product lines and product line researchers and practitioners, the SEI is proud to sponsor this second conference dedicated to software product lines. We were grati? ed by the submissions to SPLC2 from all parts of the globe, from government and commercial organizations. From these submissions we were able to assemble a rich and varied conference program with unique opportunities for software product line novices, experts, and those in between. This collection represents the papers selected from that response and includes research and experience reports.